Seishun Buta Yarou Vol 1 (haphazard translation)
by Vanadium Oxide
Summary: One day, Sakuta Azusagawa notices a wild bunny girl at the local library. But it is not simply any bunny girl, she's a senpai from his school, that so happens to be an actress on hiatus. However, something's off: Nobody seems to be able to see or hear her. It is almost like she doesn't exist, and Sakuta will soon discover, it might become just that.
1. Chapter 0

**Disclaimer:** VCRx does not own Rascal Does Not Dream. Rights belong to Hajime Kamoshida and Aniplex! Thanks!

_One day, Sakuta Azusagawa notices a wild bunny girl at the local library. But it is not simply any bunny girl, she's a senpai from his school, that so happens to be an actress on hiatus. However, something's off: Nobody seems to be able to see or hear her. It is almost like she doesn't exist, and Sakuta will soon discover, it might become just that._

* * *

**Rascal Does Not Dream of:**

**A Beautiful Bunny Girl Senpai C0**

* * *

**May 2****9th**

"_Hey," she whispered delicately. "Why don't we kiss?"_

_He forced a soft chuckle, hiding his shock. This was coming from the girl who had refused to acknowledge him as anyone more than someone just in it for a thrill - just some young boy tagging along._

_She really was full of surprises..._

"-chan."

'…_Wait._' He managed to think, as he felt his mind lurch awake, his body shaking. _'…Who is she?'_

"It's morning."

Sakuta groaned.

Correction. Someone was shaking his body.

"Onii-chan, it's morning!"

A white light shone through the pitch-dark world.

Sakuta grappled the strength to open his eyes as his consciousness returned. His fatigued gaze met his little sister Kaede's face, who was bent over the bed. The light coming in through the crack in the curtains hurt his eyes.

"You have exams today, right?" Kaede voiced, worriedly. "You'll be late."

She proceeded to shake him once more, even though he was up.

"Ah, yeah." He stifled a yawn, pushing her off him. "That's right. I got midterms."

Sakuta struggled to sit up. His whole body felt heavy, like he'd caught the flu. Touching his forehead, he felt for warmth... He felt slightly hot, maybe clammy, but he didn't necessarily feel unwell. He was – he was simply tired.

Crushing down his urge to collapse back into bed and sleep off the rest of the morning, Sakuta tossed off his covers and got up. He didn't need be late for attendance on exam day. Taking the make-up exams would be far too much trouble for sleeping in today.

He looked his clock: _7:35AM_

His mind raced, adding up the numbers. To get to school, there was a ten-minute or so walk to Fujisawa Station. Five – if he sprinted. Then, a little over twenty-minute ride on the 8:10 Train. The train ride would take normally twenty minutes, normally, and the 8:30 train would make him late. It was all rather close, but he'd done it many times before. He'd just have to leave the apartment before eight.

"You're a lifesaver, Kaede. Thanks for waking me."

"Waking up is my reason to be," she smiled cutely, but he couldn't praise that.

"You should find other ways of enjoying your life."

"Like washing your back?"

"That's a definite _no._"

"Aww."

"I meant something that doesn't involve me." As he spoke, he opened his closet to get his uniform. He took his school shirt off its hanger and in that moment, his hand slipped letting the shirt to fall atop a black paper shopping bag on the floor beneath it.

"What's that?" He asked himself. He didn't remember buying anything with that kind of bag.

He looked in the bag as he picked up his shirt. Kaede watched from the side and both of their gazes caught sight of the contents at the same time.

…A short silence filled the room.

"Onii-chan, wh-what is… What is that?!" Kaede pointed into the bag with a trembling voice.

Sakuta wanted to ask that too. There was a black leotard with a white pom-pom at the rear. There were similarly black stocking and several-inch-high heels, and even a bow tie. There were white cuffs and, to top it all off, a pair of bunny ears on a headband.

…It was a bunny girl costume.

"…Maybe I was going to get you to wear it," he said, unbelieving of himself. He didn't remember buying these. That was saying something; Sakuta considered himself having a pretty acute memory.

His mind lurched, itching like something was right on the tip of his tongue.

"Eh?" Kaede said as his hand riffled through the contents.

He picked up the headband and placed it on her head. Sakuta put his hand to his chin in a thoughtful mock gesture.

"Yeah, not too bad," he judged, jokingly.

Apparently, Kaede didn't have the same impression. She stiffened, before throwing the headband back at him, and rushing out from the room. "I'm not wearing that! It's still too soon for me to wear this kind of clothes!"

She slammed the door.

He hadn't particularly wanted to chase off his sister and make her hate him first thing in the morning. He'd need to apologize to her later. He had to get ready.

He returned the headband to its bag and kicked it back into the closet.

He turned back to his mirror and was met by his own bloodshot eyes and tired expression.

"Am I over-stressed?" he spoke to himself.

He put his arms through the sleeves of his shirt and buttoned it up. Next came his uniform trousers and then his red tie. It came out crooked.

"…"

He'd never cared much before if it whether it was straight or not, and would normally head out without a single care… but today, for some reason, it bothered him. He unknotted it and retied it, this time putting in the attention for it to come out straight.

Before he put his blazer on, he tossed his books into his bag. A green notebook on his desk caught his eye. Not recognizing it, Sakuta picked it up.

"What was this?"

He flipped through the pages, all of them empty, until about half-way through, he spied a page with neatly written sentences.

He'd thought for a moment that it was his Japanese notebook, but looking carefully, he could see it was not.

There were instructions at the top. And the rest was some sort of diary entry:

_[Honestly. I think what will be written here will be absolutely unbelievable, but it is all the truth. Read this to the end! You have to read it to its entirety, me! Read it!_

_On May 4__th__, I met a wild bunny girl at the library. She is my… She is our senpai. She is a junior at Minegahara High, the famous _ to be precise._

_This was the start of it: Our meeting. And I must not forget. I can't!_

_Even if I do forget, you must remember. Hold firm, future me. It is up to you. You have to remember! Remember _!]_

Sakuta's eyes followed the words down the page. There were many blanks in the sentences, like some sort of puzzle or Mad-lib.

He didn't remember why he'd written this. Or when. But scrutinizing the handwriting, the characters were definitely his own. He made a quick glance at his trash bin, spying the litter of energy drinks he'd downed over the last few nights of studying. He wondered if they'd somehow put him in a sort of delusion, but the words were too neat and well-formed to be the result of some late-night madness.

As he kept reading the words etched onto the page, the more painful and maddening it was. It continued to describe his time with the ideal girlfriend, entries filling a dozen more pages. It talked about them conversing on the platform, on the train, and at school, and even consisted a date where they went to Ogaki.

He had indeed gone to Ogaki several days ago, when he had a sudden urge to travel and to see something new for a day – meaning to break his routine – but he vividly remembered going alone.

But what frustrated him the most – the thing most alarming – were the blank spaces. There were empty gaps in the lines, where someone's name should be in the sentences.

Had he concocted some sort of love tale for himself, and would fill it in when he'd manage to find a girl he liked? It was a rather embarrassing idea.

He pushed those thoughts aside, flicking the notebook into the trash with his litter of drink cans. He had exams today, and he needed to have a clear head. While he normally never cared about his grades, for some reason, he simply needed to get perfect marks for this one. He would have to think this all over after-school.

Yet, those blanks on the page chilled him.

'_It was all simple rubbish. Writings from a mad-man,' _he thought, trying to convince himself.

And so, grabbing an apple from the kitchen, and shouting a quick, 'See you later' to Kaede, he headed out, for another day of school.

* * *

**May 2nd **

He hadn't planned on going out that day to the library. It was like fate, one might suppose. A set of coincidences bringing two parallel paths to cross.

That day, his little sister Kaede had begged him to get her a few new books to read over the weekend. After succumbing to a series of adorable pouts (and acknowledging that she was a rather suffocating presence to be around when she was bored), he decided he might as well go out for a ride.

There was only one library in their area. The library was a twenty-minute ride on his bike, all the way across town. The day was sunny, yet crisp. A soft breeze fluttered against him as he rode through winding neighborhoods on small streets. It brought him passed many nagaya buildings and Shonandai Station.

After stopping to park his bike in the half-full bicycle lock, Sakuta set foot into the library.

The library was a large sprawling place with three floors of knowledge, and thus was always busy. Today was Friday afternoon, possibly the busiest of time of the week for the place. Even though he had gone there many times before, the tranquility that libraries had was hard to get used to. It always seemed unnatural to him with this many people in one place to be this quiet.

He walked passed the magazine and newspaper machines that were lining the entryway. He looked around, first in the direction of the small public computer lab, and then towards the Youth Fiction section.

He'd had half a mind to get on a computer and take a rare look around the web. He almost never used computers – or the internet in general – but he did live in the Modern Age. However, it seemed every computer station was already occupied, most of them by students, some of which he recognized from his school.

The internet wasn't worth a wait to him, and so he moved on.

Like instinct, a pattern built from the numerous times he'd frequented the place, his feet carried him to the "Yu" shelf.

Kaede had asked for him to get her many books, but she had insisted on one in particular. The title of the book was _The Prince Who gave Me A Poisoned Apple_ and the author was Canna Yuigahama. Many of the books which decorated his sister's shelf back home had that name on their spine. Canna Yuigahama was by far his sister's favorite writer.

They'd made a habit between them: he'd go out to check out the next book in the series, and if she fancied the book enough, he'd get her her own copy.

Sakuta's eyes scanned the shelf, before narrowing onto a white spine with a rather juicy looking apple on its cover. He pulled it out, flipping through the pages. The book was well-worn, having been in use for several years at the public library. Many of the pages had crayon scribbles on them, although the words were all still legible and the colored visuals clear.

It would work.

He raised his head, intent on looking for more books for Kaede when he saw it.

Or rather, he saw her.

On the other side of the bookshelf, standing in front of Sakuta, was a bunny girl!

He blinked several times, doubting his eyes for a moment, but the blinking didn't change the scene before him. He could still clearly see her figure.

She wore bright black high heels. She had long slender legs that were wrapped in black stockings transparent enough to see the color of her skin. Similarly, a black leotard highlighted the lines of her slender, well-defined body. Her chest made a firm, modest valley against the stretch of the fabric. White cuffs accented her wrists, while the neck was adorned by a black bowtie.

She was maybe 5'6, minus the added height of her heels. Her long black, silky hair rained down to just past her shoulders, almost as pure as the noir of her clothing. She wore a cold expression, almost bored, which contrasted drastically against her choice of clothing. In all, everything about her was off-putting.

At first, an idea sprung up in his mind that someone might be filming. They were always doing public shoots and stuff for late night commercials and whatnot in his town. Fujisawa City even had a local studio of its own, although nothing too large. However, when he looked around, there were no television staff, no cameras, and not a single paparazzi.

She was completely alone: A lonely bunny girl.

Of course, in the early afternoon at a library, a girl dressed like that would bring up quite a lot of serious attention. After all, she was out of place, as bunny girls tended to reside in Casinos or shady places.

But nobody was looking at her.

He watched for a few minutes as she meandered around shelves and sat on counters where she would swing her legs wildly. She would walk around with a tune, almost prancing – dare he say hopping – with her arms out wide, swooshing about, and emanating an engine's 'vrr' sound, like a child playing airplane.

Along the way, the bunny girl would stop by certain people. First, she peeped at the face of a female college student engrossed in a textbook and started playing mischief by making rude gestures and poking her tongue out. She next went to an older gentleman who was on a tablet, placing her hand between his face and the screen, waving it up and down.

Both adults did not react.

She continued her dance, next to a male high school student who happened to be one of Sakuta's classmates, although he couldn't place the boy's name. The bunny girl stood in front of the boy, while he looked down at his phone, and started pulling the top of her leotard down and even doing a small lifting gesture at her chest. Almost any teenage boy would've killed to be in his position, being shown off by a pretty bunny girl.

Yet, the boy didn't even blinked. Not a single flinch.

Then, the unthinkable happened, as if it hadn't already.

The bunny girl abruptly jumped on top of a counter by the center of the library. She stood there, silent for a moment, looking at all the people around her, before cupping her hands around mouth like a loudspeaker and shouted, "Hello?! I'm here!"

She must've had large lungs. Her voice carried throughout the building.

Yet, no one looked up from their books. Nor from their phones. Nor their computers.

A librarian walked right below her and swept the dirt off the table top that the bunny girl must've tracked up with her, and then walked away.

"What the hell?" he thought. Only a second later, did he realize he had spoken aloud.

"Shh!" Another old librarian glared at him.

Sakuta apologized profusely before looking back toward the bunny girl.

The bunny girl's blank expression had faltered, it seemed. She wasn't looking his direction, but she seemed almost as troubled as much as he was, maybe even more so, about the lack of response to her commotion.

Sakuta had never seen a bunny girl in live daylight before. He'd never been to a casino, and his apartment was far from the shady places. He did not have experience with how other people would react to a bunny girl.

But looking around him, he didn't think this should be their reaction.

Or rather, non-reaction.

With such a stimulating image aside, students with even the best serious faces would have been struggling to keep their eyes on the pages. Older men that were reading papers would have been taking peaks. Librarians, who always paid careful attention, would have approached and said, "Your clothes are…"

But her presence was acknowledged by none.

It was like she was a ghost. A ghost bunny girl.

A ghost bunny girl that only Sakuta could see.

Cold sweat started to go down his back. He didn't feel comfortable here. Something was going on… Kaede would have to make do with just the one book.

Sakuta kept his eyes down as he walked to the self-checkout stations.

He wouldn't be part of this scene any longer.

He found a station unoccupied and placed Kaede's book on the counter. He looked down at his uniform trousers, pulling out his wallet to find his library card.

And then, the Bunny Girl came up to the newly vacated station beside him.

She had apparently gotten a book herself. On the periphery of his vision, he was able to capture its title: _The Delicate Flower._

She placed her book on the counter, looked down at the top of her leotard, and pulled out a library card from within.

But when she looked back up, their gazes met.

There was a long moment of silence between them, neither of them sure how to react to the other. But it was deep violet her eyes that let him recognize her…

"This is surprising," she said, scanning her card and then the book. There was a slight sense of mischief in her voice. "It seems, that you can see me."

The sass in her remark would've implied that she should be invisible to him.

But clearly, she wasn't.

"Uhh," his voice cracked.

"Well then," she gathered her things. "Goodbye."

She was leaving. She turned her back to him and made one step away, before he managed to stammer out, "Y–you're Mai Sakurajima, aren't you?"

Her feet stopped in their tracks.

"What?" she said, her voice loss with all the lip she'd had moments ago.

"Aren't you Mai Sakurajima?" Sakuta repeated. "You're a year above me."

She turned and took a serious long look back at him. She seemed to only see him entirely for the first time.

"By your uniform… Are you a student at Minegahara High?" she questioned.

"My name is Sakuta Azusagawa. Azusagawa spelled like the service area, and blooming taro, for Sakuta. Altogether it is, Sakuta Azusagawa.

"Well, then," she replied dryly, "I am Mai Sakurajima. Mai spelled like Mai in Mai Sakurajima, and Sakurajima, like Mai Sakurajima."

"I know. You're famous." _And absolutely stunning._

"Is that so."

She seemed off. She stared hesitantly around her, as if she was suddenly fearful that everyone else would begin to see her.

Then, she spoke, "Sakuta Azusagawa."

"Yes?"

"I'll give you one piece of advice."

"Huh?"

_Why couldn't his brain think of anything more than one-word responses?_

"Forget everything you saw today," she told him firmly. He opened his mouth to respond, but, before he come up with something cohesive to say, Mai continued, "If you talk to me thinking I am weird, you might become weird as well."

Well… That was certainly advice.

"If you understand," she spoke slowly, "Say yes or nod."

He did neither.

"...Hmph." Mai's face flicked shades of anger and annoyance at his non-response, before immediately taking long strides to the exit.

Meanwhile, everyone was still not paying attention to Mai.

He was tempted to chase after her. He almost did. But instead, he did nothing except stand there like an idiot and gawk.

He hadn't chased her. He didn't need to.

He would just see her on Monday, at school.


	2. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer:** VCRx does not own Rascal Does Not Dream. Rights belong to Hajime Kamoshida and Aniplex! Thanks!

_One day, Sakuta Azusagawa notices a wild bunny girl at the local library. But it is not simply any bunny girl, she's a senpai from his school, that so happens to be an actress on hiatus. However, something's off: Nobody seems to be able to see or hear her. It is almost like she doesn't exist, and Sakuta will soon discover, it might become just that._

* * *

**Rascal Does Not Dream of:**

**A Beautiful Bunny Girl Senpai C1**

* * *

**May 5th **

That morning, Sakuta woke up dreaming about being buried under a colony of bunnies.

"They were supposed to be bunny girls…" he groaned.

He went to dress and gather his things. He left his room, noticing Kaede was already up, cladded in her Panda onesie. He cooked a quick breakfast for the two of them and said a farewell to his sister as he left.

Immediately after locking the door behind him, he yawned. He had barely gotten any sleep over the weekend. He'd been too excited to sleep and the strange dreams didn't help much either.

His walk to Fujisawa station was filled with many more yawns. Sakuta lived deep in the residential district Although the buildings in his neighborhood were much shorter than average - only going three to four stories high - as he walked closer to the station he crossed into a commercial street where the buildings grew taller. Along the way, he was joined by more and more students, all going the same way. His enter neighborhood pooled into the same school and the train was by far the easiest transport to use.

He followed the stream of people, melding in, becoming one faceless student in a crowd. They flooded into the station and passed the commuter gates.

Their train frequented the East Platform. Luckily, the East Platform was the least busy of the two. Most of the adults going out for business would be heading towards the West Platform and the two crowds filtered apart.

"Yo," a cheerful voice spoke behind Sakuta as he was waiting for the train.

Sakuta yawned and looked towards the source of the voice, finding one of the most handsome ones around. Although his sharp facial features and looming height might be intimidating at first, when he laughed, his eyes always slanted downwards, and his cheek puff just enough to reveal his true friendly personality.

He was Yuuma Kunimi, one of the stars of their school's basketball team, and dreamboat to many girls at their school.

Yuuma was probably one of only two people Sakuta could call a friend at school. When Sakuta had moved into town last year, he had struggled finding anyone that would take him in their cliques. Only Yuuma had really made any effort to familiarize with Sakuta, something he was forever grateful for.

"Oi, oi," Yuuma chanted, "You shouldn't sigh when you see someone else's face."

"To see someone so well-rested and good looking as you on Monday morning kills me. Makes me depressed."

"Seriously?"

"Seriously."

They paused their friendly, meaningless banter as the station whistle chimed, signifying their train's arrival. They crowded towards the front and there was a slight push as the train doors opened up.

Sakuta had a small habit of going in the front car of trains. They allowed for arguably the best views, only competing against the back car.

As the doors closed and the train's bells dinged, the floor below his feet begin to accelerate.

"Hey Kunimi," Sakuta prompted as the station retreated from their view.

"Hmm?"

"What do you think of Sakurajima-senpai?"

Yuuma had lived and breathed Fujisawa City all his life. He knew much more about social groups and the people around here then Sakuta did.

"Oh? What is this? You finally interested with another girl besides Shoko Makinohara?"

"What are you insinuating?"

Yuuma blinked. "I mean, it is great to hear Sakuta talk about someone new. It was always 'Shoko' this and 'Shoko' that. You were like an obsessed groveler for a few weeks. But no, Sakurajima-senpai is impossible. Good luck."

"I wasn't going to confess my love or anything," Sakuta deflected, irked.

"Hmm? Then what?"

"I wonder what kind of person she is"

He wondered many more things about Mai Sakurajima. What it was like to be her, with her type of career. And what the hell he saw last Friday.

But, it wasn't a lie. He truly did want to know what kind of person she was.

"You mean, like, as a famous person?"

That's right. Mai Sakurajima was famous. The entire school knew of her. But what was probably more impressive, was that probably 90% of Japan knew her face.

– Okay, maybe that was an exaggeration. But, she was indeed a real celebrity.

It had been a slight shock when he moved into town that he had heard a celebrity like her was attending his new school.

"Sure. I guess."

"How much you want to know?"

"I dunno. Everything you do."

"Everything, huh? Okay, Mr. 'Not Going to Confess My Love…' Let's see," Yuuma's eyes grew distant with thought. "Everything I know about her: She debuted on that early morning drama at the age of six. The one everyone was watching, and apparently everyone just fell in love with the character. Course, I haven't watched it myself, so I can only assume her performance was stellar, and apparently there was one sob scene that just skyrocketed her popularity–"

Her popularity had indeed skyrocketed, along with her career. After the show's finale, she was immediately picked up and appeared in dozens of movies and dramas and commercials.

For a while, it was impossible to watch a day of television without seeing her cute face.

Even though most child-actors would fade away once they hit their puberty, losing their cute charm, Mai Sakurajima didn't. On screen, she filled out to be a beautiful young woman, and had a quirk that was irresistible to the crowds. Thus, she continued to get massive roles, all throughout middle school.

"–You know, I think Sakurajima might've been my first crush," Yuuma admitted.

It was a shameless confession. Most of the boys at their age at the time were fascinated with her in some shape or form.

However, at the peak of her career, Mai Sakurajima had announced she would be taking a break. It had been right after she had graduated middle school. No clear reasons were given, and the entertainment industry had lost one of their greatest rising stars.

That had been over two years ago.

"There have been rumors about why she stopped acting," Yuuma warned ominously. "People said she was doing so well because her mother had entered her into a secret pillow business and that they stopped when the treasured pillow became filled with feathers."

"… Wasn't she only in Elementary school at the time?"

"No. Those rumors only surfaced when she hit Middle School," Yuuma corrected, tapping his chin. "Rather, I believe the first rumors was that it was her mother who was part of the pillow business."

"Fu – Wow. I didn't know that."

"Yep. Although now she probably doesn't need to be. Mother Sakurajima now has her own agency."

"I doubt those are true. They're only stories to get published. It's all just groundless speculation."

"People say that when there is smoke, there's bound to be a fire nearby."

"But we do live in an era where the winds carry smoke rather far," Sakuta defended. He didn't even know why or what he was defending.

They lived in the age with jarring stories and the ferocity of the internet. Information can spread at a moment's notice, and everyone shared everything. Even if it's not true. Or rather, especially if it's not true. Lies were always a lot more interesting that reality, and what was the point of spreading boring information that wouldn't get you follows and likes? That was what 'news' has become.

Their conversation took a pause as the tracks veered left, following the coastline.

This part of the ride was always Sakuta's favorite part of the morning. Often, it was the only motivation to get up in the morning. And Yuuma had learned long ago that it was better to pause and let Sakuta to enjoy the moment.

It was a daily tradition. Once a day, he'd spend a few moments to look out at the sea. The tradition stemmed from a promise…

Today was late spring, and by 8AM, the sun was already well above the horizon. The western horizon always shone and sparkled best at dawn, but nevertheless, as Sakuta blocked out the noise of people, and the low hum of the train, he could almost faintly hear the splashes of the waves on the sand, many yards below him, and the sound of a lullaby… .

The moment past by quick. Within a minute, the train diverted back inland, and trees and buildings reentered his vision.

"But there's more to why you don't see anyone with her at school," Yuuma resumed.

"Huh?"

"I meant about Sakurajima. It was what we were talking about."

"Oh right."

"She's always alone."

That was right. Mai Sakurajima was definitely a celebrity, in the sense that everyone knew her. Yet, when it comes to actual social popularity, she might as well have never existed. Sakuta was in the year below her, and thus, didn't have any classes with her, but he'd seen her around campus.

And she was always alone… He'd never thought about it before.

"The older guys on the basketball team mentioned that in freshman year, she didn't show up for first semester."

"Really?"

"Apparently. Probably because of her still being in the showbiz. Even after her announcement for a hiatus, she was still on screen for a while, remember?"

"Oh yea."

"She probably had some left-over obligations, contracts and all. She didn't really start school until Fall quarter."

So, she had been in the same boat as him, or one similar. Having joined the class late, it's tough to fit in. After a class finds its places and establishes its dynamics, it's difficult to alter it. Having started in the second semester, Mai would've been an odd presence. And because she was a celebrity – a celebrity with those type of rumors circulating around her – it would've made it almost taboo for anyone to approach her.

That was the nature of school.

The same old nothing and meaningless socializing between boring lecture halls.

Everyone says, "I'm bored," or "Isn't there anything to do?" yet no one is actually looking for anything new. Change is strange. It's unpredictable and thus undesirable.

"I've heard that some had tried to approach her, but she keeps to herself. That's something you two have in common."

"Hmm."

The only reason why he and Yuuma had met was because they'd been told to form pairs for an exercise for gym, and Sakuta had been left as the lone remainder. Yuuma had volunteered to be his partner. Sakuta hadn't planned on wanting to associate with anyone, but Yuuma was a nice person, all around. And so, Sakuta allowed their friendship.

Unfortunately, Yuuma and Sakuta were in different classes this year. The only person in his class he was slightly familiar with was Saki Kamisato, Yuuma's girlfriend.

"Why are you suddenly asking about Mai Sakurajima anyway?" Yuuma changed course.

Sakuta stared down at his feet for a moment, thinking of how to respond.

He answered with a question. "Do you like bunny girls?"

"What?!" Yuuma stepped back and bumped into someone else. After apologizing, Yuuma looked back at Sakuta.

"Do you like bunny girls?" Sakuta repeated.

"Eh, well, not really."

"Then… do you love them?"

"Hell yea, I love them," Yuuma laughed.

"Then, I won't tell you."

"Huh, what's that supposed to mean?" Yuuma playfully shoved Sakuta.

"For example, if you met an attractive bunny girl at the library, what would you do?"

"I'd look twice."

"That's right!"

"Afterwards, I'd stare at her."

"I know right!" That was what he thought the normal reaction would be. At least, the normal male reaction.

"So – is this somehow related to Mai Sakurajima?"

"So what if they're related?"

"What is that supposed to mean? The fuck?"

"Nothing. Nevermind."

Yuuma decided to drop the subject. It was pointless to pursue when Sakuta withheld information. Sakuta wasn't the type to share unless he wanted to.

"Oh right, how is Kaede-chan?" Yuuma poked instead.

"Don't you dare lust over my younger sister," Sakuta sighed, running his hand through his hair.

"You say heartless things, man."

"You already have a cute girlfriend."

"Oh right. I forgot about that."

"She will get angry when I tell her."

"That's alright. Kamisato gets even cuter when she's angry."

Sakuta huffed in agreement. It was rather enjoyable to watch whenever Saki got angry. Truly, a sight to beholden.

The bells for departure began to ring as the train began to slow. Sakuta looked out the window and saw their school campus in the backdrop, up in the hills.

They were one of the last ones to depart the train, neither of them in any particular rush.

Sakuta was a slow walker at heart, and while he was fully capable of running long distances – he'd been qualified to join the track team – he always hated people who were rushing about.

Despite the day of the week, the short road from the station and Minegahara High was filled with happy voices and laughter, as friends found friends in the crowds.

"Hey. Speaking of 'not confessing love,' look there," Yuuma said.

Sakuta followed Yuuma's eyes,scanning several dozen yards forward to the center of the crowd, before finding Mai Sakurajima. Despite her surrounded by dozens of people, she seemed to walk alone, while cliques jabbered and laughed around her. A group of young girls to her left were laughing with one another at some joke. The math club to her right was all together, shoving each other and whatnot.

Mai seemed oddly isolated, walking silently, like she was trying to not be noticed. She was like an outsider who got caught accidentally in a crowd of high school students, or the ugly duckling, the one who stood out, yet blended away so perfectly.

No one made a single hiss or snicker about _Mai Sakurajima_ being within their crowd. No one was looking at her. It wasn't like she wasn't some unknown. There was often talk when she wasn't around, and more.

It was almost like the entire school was in one some joke to ignore her existence, or some fog or atmosphere had enveloped the campus making it simply impossible to see her. The sight made him remember the people he saw at Shonandai Library, and an odd feeling rose in his stomach.

"Hey Yuuma, you see Sakurajima-senpai, don't you?" Sakuta asked.

"Crystal clear. I do have 20/20 vision. Wasn't it me that pointed her out for you?"

"Right…" Sakuta felt he wasn't grasping something important. "Well then –"

"Hey!" a chirpy voice came from his left, and a head of red hair popped out from the crowd, before squeezing between them and latching onto Yuuma's arm. "Morning Kunimi!"

"Oh, good morning Kamisato," Yuuma smiled. "How was your weekend?"

"Oh, nothing much. The weekend was utterly dreadful. But, I do have to show you what Asami and I worked on! Come look!" Saki pulled at his friend's arm.

Yuuma looked hesitantly in the direction of Sakuta, and Sakuta waved them off. They needed time to be a couple.

After Saki dragged Yuuma away, Sakuta spent the rest of the journey alone. He made it to class and sat in his desk, before listening to his professor ramble on about trigonometry for four hours. Then it was lunch.

He always ate lunch outside if the weather allowed it. Today was just about right: with the bright warm sun, yet balanced with a quiet, cool ocean breeze. It combined into the perfect scene.

He found a bench in a quiet spot,on the opposite side of campus from where most students normally spent their lunches. While there were still a handful around him, it was quiet enough for him to think.

He was unpacking his lunch when a familiar voice chirped at him. "Hey."

Sakuta looked up, a juice box in his hand.

"Oh. Good afternoon, Saki," Sakuta greeted unenthusiastically before looking back down to poke his straw through the hole. "How is your day."

"Don't, 'How is your day' with me," Saki growled at him. "I've told you: Stop hanging out with Yuuma."

Sakuta yawned before taking a long sip from his juice box. He looked at her, and then down at his lunch, before looking at her again.

"I do not think I am interfering with his relationship with you," Sakuta replied coolly.

"That's not it." Saki stamped, tapping her foot. "If Yuuma keeps hanging out with _'Hospital Incident,'_ people will start talking and I don't want you ruining his reputation. So back off."

"Oh – That incident…" Sakuta murmured, acting uninterested on the subject as he set down his juice box. "By that way of thinking, I kind of feel sorry for you. Your reputation must be plummeting right now by just talking to me, but you're okay with that?"

"What? Are you challenging me?"

"Just accepting yours," Sakuta yawned, stretching his arms. "Ya know, you look a bit irritable today. Are you on your period or something?"

Saki's face reddened to the same shade of her hair, losing all composure. He didn't know what was with her. She was so easy to annoy. She almost looked like a tomato.

"You idiot. You should just die!" Saki screamed at him before turning and marching away, murmuring things about why she even bothered to talk to him.

Sakuta rolled his eyes before unwrapping the sandwich that Kaede made for him.

"Man, I don't know what he sees in her," Sakuta said to himself, biting into his sandwich.

He really didn't, but she was Yuuma's girlfriend, not his, so he didn't say anything. It was Yuuma's life.

After their confrontation, Sakuta had more classes of lectures. Although he usually spent afternoons nodding off while looking out the window, it almost felt intolerable as Sakuta could feel Saki's hot glare on the back of his neck.

It became a rather long day.

After-school, Sakuta wasn't in any rush to get home so he meandered around the school grounds, looking kindly at the intricate gardens and lines of cherry blossoms. He didn't know how long he had been out and about, but he judged about half-an-hour, and prompted himself to head to the station to catch the next train.

There was almost no one along the road back to the station. The campus had been basically evacuated, and the streets were as quiet like a ghost town. He made it to Shichirigahama Station, which was also nearly empty, save a handful of Minegahara students and adults.

Amongst them, Sakuta spotted a certain person that'd been the center of his thoughts as of late: a female student standing high and dignified, right near the other end of the platform. She had an atmosphere around her that deterred interaction. Her gaze was beyond thought and a shield from reality, in the form of a pair of earphones draped languidly from her ears to a pocket in her uniform.

It was Mai Sakurajima. Her face was profiled by the setting sun, yet somehow mystically beautiful. Even though she was simply standing there, she could have certainly been a picture. It was enough to make him stare at her…

He wasn't the only one.

A couple near the center of the platform had apparently noticed her as well. By their appearance, they looked like a form of sightseeing university students.

"Hey, is that?.." said the woman.

"It's got to be," agreed the man he presumed to be her boyfriend.

He could hear them whisper to one another while the pointed. Apparently, Mai didn't notice, as she continued to face the tracks.

"Hey, quit it…" the woman laughed, even though she didn't seem to be trying to stop her boyfriend. The playful conversation of the couple was unavoidable to the ears on the quiet platform. The resonance of the platform seemed to broadcast their words all over.

Sakuta tried to ignore it. He really did.

But it was obvious that the couple didn't know how obnoxious they were being. When he couldn't take it anymore and turned toward them, the man was pointing his smartphone at Mai.

Before the shutter was released, Sakuta had cut into the frame, and the man was left with only a close-up of Sakuta's nose.

"Huh?" the main spat, confused, before looking up with annoyance. "What the hell are you?"

Even though he had been surprised for a moment, the man came forward with confidence. He probably couldn't let himself be shown up by a high-schooler.

"I'm a human," Sakuta answered with a serious expression. "What are you supposed to be? An ogling photographer?"

"Why you!" The man took a step forward, raising a fist, but his girlfriend stopped him, holding back his hand.

"Come on. Let's go. It's not a big deal," the woman pulled the man to the opposite side of the station.

Sakuta let out a sigh of relief, before a whistle signaled an approaching train. He stepped up to the front of the platform… next to Mai Sakurajima.

"…Thanks."

"Eh?" Sakuta widened his eyes, turning slowly as Mai was tiredly removing her earphones."

"I said thank you," Mai repeated, staring as a train rolled into the station. It was not theirs. The college couple, however, boarded, along with everyone else.

They were the only ones left on the platform.

"Thank you for what?"

"The sound on my earphones were off. They're more to keep people from talking to me, rather than me from hearing others. I overheard what you had said."

"Oh… that." Sakuta rubbed the small of his back, caught off guard. She'd heard all that?

She'd probably known of the couple the whole time and must've just ignored them.

"What? Did you think I'd get mad and tell you to mind your business?"

"I did," he relented.

"Don't worry. I'm contenting myself by silently thinking it. Saying thank you was only mere courtesy."

"…Wow." Sakuta rubbed his face. "I would rather you hadn't said that."

"Hmm."

"You noticed them the entire time?"

"I'm used to it," she frowned.

"Yeah, but it must wear you down."

Mai was silent for a moment before peeking a glance his way. "'Wears you down'… Yeah, it kinda does."

A small smile tugged on her lips as if she was enjoying something.

Feeling that this introduction meant he might be able to talk to her now, Sakuta stepped slightly closer – not enough to be friendly, or even cordial – but a distance short enough where it wouldn't be awkward to carry a conversation.

"Why are you here late?" Mai started first, surprising him.

"I needed a break from reality. Went for a small stroll around the school, breathed in the ocean breeze. What about you, Sakurajima-senpai? Why are you here so late?"

"I was wasting time so I wouldn't run into you," she said blandly.

He couldn't tell from her face if she was being serious or was joking. Deciding he'd hate it if it was the former, Sakuta decided not to ask, and looked at the time-table to change the subject.

"What's the time?" Sakuta asked.

"Don't you have a watch?" Mai ticked. He pulled his sleeves up and showed his empty wrists. "Then check your phone."

"I don't have one."

"You mean a smartphone?"

"I don't have a phone _or_ a smartphone. And I don't mean I forgot it today either."

He hadn't brought his phone with him simply because he didn't have one to bring.

"…Really?" Mai looked at him with disbelief.

"Honest. I used to own one, but I grew pissed one day and threw it into the sea."

He could remember it well. It had been the day Kaede…

"Throw your trash into trash cans," Mai scolded, "not the ocean."

"I'll make sure of it next time."

"Hmph." Mai looked at him judgingly. "With your personality, you don't have any friends, do you?"

You couldn't go out with friends if you weren't reachable by phone; that was simply how the world worked today. Mai's implied statement was correct. Exchanging numbers, e-mails, snaps: that was the first steps towards friendships. Not having a phone to access any of it meant he slipped through the webs of society.

In a small world, like school, not following that way of life makes you an outsider from the start: an outcast. Thanks to that, it was hard for him to make friends.

"I've got two. Even." Sakuta eagerly informed.

"Can you say 'even' with only two friends?!"

"Two friends are more than enough for me, I think. As long as I keep them for life."

To Sakuta, those emails and social medias and more were meaningless. They created fake, loose relationships, filled with short posts and pictures of food, and vague emoticons… It was all simply meaningless stories to broadcast a sugared version of one's life to others.

On the internet, one has 'friends' or 'followers.' But what do those words mean? Where do you actually draw the line on 'friend?'

For Sakuta, the line for calling someone a true friend was if you phoned them in the middle of the night, they'd reluctantly talk to you.

"Hmm."

Even as she was making polite noises as he spoke, Mai was looking down at the smartphone she'd pulled from her pocket. It had a pink cover on it, with bunny ears on it. She showed the screen to Sakuta, and the time 16:37 was displayed. Their train would arrive in a minute, and just as he thought that, the phone began to vibrate signaling an incoming call.

'Manager' was written on the screen, and Mai put a finger over the reject button. The phone stopped vibrating.

"Is… Is that okay?" Sakuta said.

"The train's coming… and I already know what that damn woman wants."

She sounded angry with the latter words.

The Fujisawa-bound train slowly pulled up to the platform.

He boarded the train through the same door as Mai and they sat in neighboring empty seats.

"About Friday…"

"I'd advised you to forget Friday."

"But you looked so sexy in that bunny girl outfit, Sakurajima-senpai. There was no way I would forget that." He let out a controlled yawned. "I haven't gotten much sleep since."

"Hang on! Y-You didn't do a-anything nefarious while thinking ab-bout me, did you?"

Rather than the disgusted and scornful words he'd expected, Mai's face went to a deep shade of red with panic. She glared up at him as if to hide her embarrassment. It was a really adorable action. But when she concealed her discomposure, she gave an excuse to keep up appearances:

"I-I'm fine with knowing younger boys imagining perverted things about me." Her scarlet cheeks betrayed her bluff, and she was rubbing her shivering shoulders fiercely as if she were freezing. The train was, however, quite warm. Mai pushed at Sakuta's shoulder as if she was brushing off something vile. "Wo-would you move away a bit… and I wasn't telling you to forget my outfit."

"Then what was that Friday?" he asked.

"You know, Sakuta Azusagawa-kun –"

"You remembered my name," he said with an agaped mouth.

"I make sure to remember names when I hear them." It was an attentiveness that he'd like to learn. She had probably cultivated it out of necessity while working in the show-business. "I've heard the rumors about you."

"Rumors?"

He could guess what they were. He'd been called it by Saki Kamisato at lunch earlier.

"Technically speaking, I saw them rather than heard them." Mai took out her smartphone again and opened up a forum. "You went to middle school in Yokohama."

"I did."

"And you had a violent outburst which sent three classmates to hospital."

"I'm surprisingly handy in fights. Who knew?"

"And because of that, even though you were going to go to high school there, a year later, you moved here and took the entry exams for Minegahara High School."

"Hmm?"

"There's plenty more. Shall I continue?"

"…It's not really something to pry into." Sakuta raised his hands as a display of innocence. "If anything, I'm honored you took such great interest in me."

"The internet is amazing – so much personal information like this being available."

"Wow," he said, scanning the discussion boards on her phone. "I didn't know it was written to this extent though."

"You never look yourself up?"

"Should I be?"

"Well. I guess not, especially if it's nonsense."

"Huh. What do you think, Senpai?"

"It's obvious if you think about it a little. There's no way a person that did something that big would just go to school as if nothing had happened."

Mai continued to scroll through the pages.

He suppressed a chuckle. "I wish my classmates heard that."

"If they're wrong, you should tell them."

Sakuta leaned back, contemplating. "…Rumors – Rumors act sort of like a fog or shield. It's like a mirage – an atmosphere of sorts, that befuddles truth and creates false illusions. When one person conceives of the false narrative, everyone subconsciously takes in image and copy it. It's all hysterics, mind you."

"Oh?" Mai slightly leaned in, in curiosity.

Sakuta shrugged. "I'm already shrouded in mystery by an atmosphere. If I were to explain the truth, it'd probably end up as a joke, with them saying, 'What? Laaammeeee.'"

"Huh."

Sakuta looked down at his hands. "Besides, they might not even believe me. I'd look like some crazed mind trying to convince himself otherwise. Fighting against the atmosphere would be like punching air. It's ridiculous and futile."

"So. You're leaving the misunderstanding as it is and giving up without trying."

"It's fine, really. I'm not all that confident I'd be able to be friends with simple people who believe any rumors and posts without thinking at all or knowing who made them."

"That's a spiteful way of saying it." Mai's smile took on a tinge of sympathy.

"It's your turn next, Senpai."

Mai looked unhappily at Sakuta for a moment, but then thought about how Sakuta had opened up about his circumstances.

She opened her mouth in defeat. "A week ago, I went out to the aquarium in Enoshima on a whim."

"Alone?"

"Is that a problem?"

"I had just wondered if you had a boyfriend. He should've taken you."

"I've never had one." Mai pursed her lips.

"Hehh."

"Is there a problem?"

Their gazes met. Mai was slightly red, right down to her neck. Apparently, she was embarrassed on the subject.

"Ah, I make it a rule not to worry about that type of thing," Sakuta comforted.

"R-right. Anyway, I noticed that no one was looking at me in that aquarium, even though it was full of families." Mai's sulky expression made her look younger and adorable. It was a refreshing experience. However, the tone of her voice steadily lowered into seriousness. "I thought it was just my imagination at first. It's been nearly two years since I was active, and everyone was engrossed with the fish. But it became clear when I went into a coffee shop on the way home. No one welcomed me in, and I wasn't guided to a seat."

"Was it a self-serve?"

"It's a traditional coffee shop, with seats at the counters, and four at each table."

"Did you happen to have gone there in the past and gotten yourself banned from service?"

"There's no way that's it."

"You're sure?"

She looked away. "And when I spoke to the staff, they didn't respond, not even a flinch. None of the other customers noticed me either, in fact. I was so surprised, I ran back home."

"How far?"

"To Fujisawa." Mai blinked. "But nothing weird happened there. Everyone looked at me like normal 'surprised at seeing Mai Sakurajima.' I thought that it really had been my imagination, but… I was curious, so I started investigating if it happened in other places."

"And the bunny girl thing?"

"In that outfit, if people could see me, they'd look, so much there would be no room for doubt."

That was exactly right, Sakuta's reaction that day had proved its effectiveness. "Then, by other places… you meant Shonandai…"

"Exactly. Now, I'm just waiting until I'm invisible to the whole world." For some reason, she looked reproachfully at Sakuta. "Everything was normal at school today… for now."

Mai gave a subtle nod to look behind her, where a student in another school's uniform was checking his phone and sneaking glances at them. Of course, the student's aim probably wasn't atSakuta.

"You look like you're enjoying yourself, senpai, even though you're having such a strange experience," Sakuta remarked bluntly.

Mai didn't seem to be particularly sad about it, which differed greatly from the vibe she'd given the day they met.

"Well yes, it is enjoyable."

Sakuta stared at her. "Are you sane? Why–"

"I've always been the center of attention, haven't I? I've always lived under the gazes of others. So when I was little I made a wish. I wished I could go to a world where no one knew me." She didn't seem like she was lying now, but even if he was told it was an act, there was enough reason to believe her. She'd been a child entertainer that had had the ability to become a full-fledged actress.

But while they were talking, Sakuta noticed that her eyes had moved towards one of the adverts displayed on the ceiling of the train. It was advertising the film adaptation of a novel. Its title looked familiar.

_The Delicate Flower._

The lead actress was a popular woman who had been promoted recently, and Sakuta scrutinized: she was the same age as Mai. Mai probably had the trends of showbiz on her mind, or maybe she was feeling a little bit nostalgic?

No, he had a feeling that wasn't it. Mai's eyes seemed to be staring into some distant world and had some other emotion smoldering behind them.

Regret.

"Senpai?"

Mai didn't respond.

"Sakurajima-senpai?" he repeated.

"I can hear you." After a blink, Mai glanced at Sakuta. "I'm happy with this, so don't interfere."

Before they noticed, the train had arrived at Fujisawa Station, and the trained slowed to a halt. The doors opened, and Sakuta hurriedly followed Mai, who was leaving with purpose.

"If you finally understand just how weird I am now, then great."

"What?!"

"Now you don't have to associate with me anymore." Mai spoke bluntly and sped off through the ticket gate and continued to enlarge the distance between her and Sakuta after they parted.

He followed after her departing figure, because it was his way home anyway, into the station building.

He found Mai standing in front of a coin locker at the corner, where she was taking out a black paper bag. He hadn't had the chance to catch up to her when she then hurriedly walked off to a baker's stand.

"One custard bun please," she called out to the older woman manning the stall. There was no reaction, as if the woman couldn't hear her.

"One custard bun please?" Mai repeated her order, slightly louder, but the woman didn't react. Then a little girl – maybe of middle school age – walked up next to her.

"One melon bread please," the girl asked with a high voice.

"One lemon bread? That'd be 100 yen, little miss!"

The little girl forked out some change and was given her order in exchange.

Mai almost looked like she had the intention of murdering that little girl right there.

Sakuta walked up next to Mai and spoke loudly to the woman. "Excuse me, a custard bun please!"

"One custard bun. Coming up!"

Sakuta handed over 130 yen for the paper bag she passed over the counter. He walked away from the stand and handed the package to Mai, who cast her eyes down uncomfortably.

"Are you really not bothered at all?" he asked.

"Well… I guess not being able to custard buns from here might become troubling," she answered reluctantly.

"Right."

"But… Do you believe the mad things I've been saying?"

"Besides what I just witnessed? How should I put it? I know about that kind of thing..." Sakuta frowned.

"Hmm?"

"It's Adolescence Syndrome, isn't it?" Sakuta prompted.

Mai's eyebrows raised in surprise.

Adolescence Syndrome was the term to describe a new phenomenon that had arisen with the rise of the internet. Online, there would be stories found on hushed discussion boards, that told tall tales and rumors about people that could read minds, see the future, swap bodies, and other occult-like occurrences.

Psychologists that dealt with the issues assumed that it was a sign of madness and ignored the findings. Others thought it was an illness brought about by the stresses of an increasingly unforgiving world against one's individuality. The majority of adults - who spent their adolescence before the internet, passed it off as a hoax, and looked at the phenomenon with amusement and point to easier explanations like group hypnotism or children just looking for attention.

"Isn't Adolescence Syndrome just a common urban legend?"

Mai was right. It is an urban legend.

Normally, no one would believe it, and everyone would have had the same reaction as Mai. Even if they experienced something strange themselves, they'd think it was their imagination and not accept it, but Sakuta had an undeniable basis for his belief.

"Actually, there is something I want to show you, so that you'll believe me when I say, I believe you, senpai."

"Oh? Something you want to show me?" Mai furrowed her eyebrows at Sakuta in suspicion.

"Would you come with me?"

Mai thought hard over his suggestion for a while before finally coming to a small nod. "…Sure."

Sakuta led her to his apartment – about a ten minutes' walk from the station.

"Where are we?" Mai was looking up at the block of flats.

"My place."

A stare of mistrust and suspicion stabbed into him from the side.

"I'm not going to do anything," he said. "Probably."

He huffed that last part under his breath.

"You just said something, didn't you?"

"I said that if you tempt me, I'm not sure I'll be able to control myself."

"You'd make a horrible salesperson." Mai's mouth pulled into a straight line. Hmphing, Mai walked quickly to the entrance and resisting a laugh, Sakuta followed right away and walked by her side as they made their way to the elevator.

"Oh, are you nervous, Senpai?"

"N-nervous? Me?"

"Your voice betrays you."

"E-entering a younger boy's home is nothing to me."

They used the lift to go up to the third floor, and the third door on the right was where Sakuta lived.

"I'm hooome!" Sakuta shouted into the place as he unlocked the door.

There was no answer to his call in the entryway. Normally, his sister Kaede would have ambushed him, but he had come home at an unusual time today, so she was probably sulking, or maybe just sleeping, or concentrating on reading so much that she hadn't noticed him return.

"Come on in," he invited Mai, who was standing stiffly in the entryway, with her shoes still on.

They went inside and headed straight to Sakuta's room. Mai put her bag and the pastry bag she was carrying into a corner, then lowered herself to sit on his bed. When Sakuta sneaked a look into the paper bag, he saw a pair of bunny ears.

She had probably planned to be a wild bunny girl somewhere else today.

"Hmmm, it's clean," Mai noted with a weary voice, after she looked around his room.

"I just don't have much to leave around."

"That's what it looks like."

The only furniture was a desk, a chair, a small wardrobe and a bed. Otherwise, the room was empty.

"Senpai, you–"

"Hey–" Mai interrupted him.

"What is it?"

"Stop calling me 'Senpai', I don't remember becoming your senpai."

"Sakurajima-san?"

"My surname's too long." Mai bit her left cheek. "I'd rather you not spend six syllables each time."

"Then, just Mai?" Sakuta shrugged, before being suddenly pulled down. Mai had grabbed his tie and was pinning him down onto the bed

"Use '-san'."

"To think you'd be so bold…" Sakuta looked up at the girl on top of him on his bed.

For an instant, there was a tense atmosphere between them.

"I–I hate impolite people." Mai pushed away, in deep blush, now realizing what situation she'd placed herself in.

"Then – Mai-san?"

Mai bit her cheek, before nodding. She scooted a little further from Sakuta, before looking back at him with a contemplating expression. "Azusagawa doesn't fit you, so I'll call you Sakuta-kun."

Just what kind of image of 'Azusagawa' did Mai have?

"Alright."

"Well then, what did you want to show me, Sakuta-kun?"

Sakuta stood and loosened his tie. He next unbuttoned his shirt, and removed it, along with the T-shirt he was wearing underneath.

"W-why are you stripping!?" Mai shouted and uncomfortably looked away. "Y-you said you wouldn't do anything. Lewd! Pervert! Exhibitionist!"

Jeering at him, Mai slowly returned her gaze to Sakuta before letting out an 'ah' of pure surprise.

There were three vivid scars carved into his chest. It looked like he had been clawed at by a huge beast and cut from his right shoulder to his left side.

"Wer–were you attacked by a mutant?"

"I didn't know you were interested in American comics, Senpai."

"I've only watched the movies."

"Oh."

Mai stared steadily at the scars. "They're - they're real aren't they?..."

"Did you think there are idiots that walk around wearing fake scars like this?"

Mai seemed oddly mesmerized by his chest. Sadly, he did not think it was because of his level of fitness "…Can I touch them?"

"Uh? Um, go ahead."

Mai stood and extended her hand, softly placing a fingertip on the opening of the wound on his shoulder.

"Ah."

"Hey, don't make weird sounds." Mai retracted her arm.

"I'm sensitive there, so please be gentle."

"Like this?" Mai's finger traced along the scar.

Sakuta gave an exaggerated moan. "It feels really good."

Without changing her expression, Mai pinched at his stomach.

Hard.

"Ow, ow! It hurts! Let me go!" Sakuta yelped with a strained voice.

Mai frowned. "And yet somehow, you look like you're still enjoying it anyway."Mai frowned.

"It really hurts!"

Perhaps Mai thought it was pointless as she let go, before wiping her hands on her uniform like she'd touched something gross. "So, how did this happen?"

"I don't really know."

"Huh, what do you mean? Wasn't this what you wanted to show me?"

"No, this doesn't matter; don't worry about it."

"Of course, it concerns me. Besides, if not, why did you begin to strip?"

"…It's a habit to change right after I get home, so I couldn't help it." As he explained himself, Sakuta stretched out a hand to his locked desk drawer and retrieved a photo from it before handing it to Mai. "This is it."

"…!?" The moment her eyes dropped to the photo, they opened wide in surprise. Her expression turned serious, and she looked over for an explanation from Sakuta. "What is this?"

Depicted was a middle-school girl with short mousy-brown hair. Her arms were bared by her summer school uniform, and those, along with her legs, were covered in bruises and painful looking cuts.

What wasn't imaged was that her stomach and back, covered by the uniform, were much the same.

"My sister, Kaede."

"Was she assaulted?"

"No, she was just bullied on the internet."

"…I don't get what you're saying."

That was understandable, most people would have that reaction to his sister being bullied.

"One day, after finally being accepted into the popular clique at school, she left a message on read without replying," Sakuta explained. "Apparently their leader thought Kaede was purposely ignoring them and hated her for it. Then her classmates wrote things like 'you're the worst', 'die', 'you're gross', 'you're the worst', and 'don't come to school ever again' on the social network they used. It went for about a week, before that started happening to her body."

"Really?"

"At first, I had thought someone had attacked her. But… she already wasn't going to school then and didn't go outside. My parents actually thought Kaede might've been tormenting herself… There are people that think they're in the wrong for being bullied and blame themselves."

Mai looked away.

"I wanted to know what was happening, so I skipped out on school and stayed home with her. The second Kaede would look at the social network, new wounds appeared on her body. Her arms and thighs would suddenly split open, and even spurted blood… Each time she saw a post, she'd bruise, and they kept piling up." It had almost looked like the wounds on her heart were cut into her body. "This is why I believe you, and why I believe Adolescence Syndrome exists."

Mai worried over how to accept it. "…It's hard to believe all of a sudden, but there's no reason to go as far as to make this photo for a made-up story."

Taking the photo back from Mai, Sakuta put it back in the desk and locked the drawer.

"Are those scars from the same time?"

He nodded slightly. "A bit afterward, but basically. Anyway, a human didn't make them. I just have no idea what caused them. I woke up covered in blood and was taken to the hospital… I thought I'd die."

"Could that be what the hospital incident was?"

"Yes - I was the one sent to the hospital."

Mai let out a sigh and sat down again. "You were right. The truth does make you sound lame."

It was then that the door opened, and Sakuta's calico cat, Nasuno, jumped into a room with a lazy meow. And behind him…

"Onii-chan, are you… here?" Kaede peeked out from the doorway in her panda onesie before letting out a sound of confusion: "Eh?"

In her brother's room, she could see her brother, with his shirt off, and an older woman decorating his bed.

The three were silent, and their gazes met for a moment, with Nasuno playfully rolling about Sakuta's feet.

Kaede was the first one to speak.

"I-I'm sorry!" As she apologized, she left the room for a moment, and slammed the door shut behind her, but soon pushed it slightly back open to peep through the crack. She looked back between the two individuals in her brother's room, before beckoning Sakuta over.

"What?" Sakuta picked up Nasuno and walked to up to the door. Standing on her tiptoes, Kaede hid her mouth with both hands and whispered into his ear.

"Onii-chan, if you are to have a professional lady delivered to you for the night, please say so in advance!" Kaede said fiercely.

"Kaede, you're seriously misunderstanding things," Sakuta defended. "We–"

"What else could this be other than uniform play?!"

Sakuta stepped back in slight shock. His little sister was fourteen - only two years younger than he was - yet she'd lived much of her teenage years heavily sheltered.

"Where the hell did you learn about this?"

"…In a book you got me to r–read a month ago… There was a girl that worked in the industry; she was a lovely girl that guided pitiful men to Nirvana."

Sakuta paled. He swore he'd collected books only from the youth section… He'd made a habit of only judging books by little more than their cover and title. He cursed himself silently. He'd need to take more care.

"Well, while the explanation varies between people, wouldn't you normally see this and think that your brother had brought his girlfriend home?"

He thought that would be the much more natural assumption, but…

"I would rather picture the earth being destroyed," Kaede nodded earnestly.

"Is that truly how you think of me?"

"Hey, can we carry on already?" Mai interrupted.

He turned back to the room, and Kaede took the moment's opportunity to cling to his back. Both of her hands were on his shoulder as she hid behind there, peeking out at Mai from time to time. But Kaede had grown tall the last year, hitting a growth spurt, so she couldn't really hide. Being seen by Mai was just too much for her.

"Onii-chan, she isn't scamming you, is she?"

"She is not."

"Y-You didn't promise to go look at paintings?"

"I did not."

"She didn't coerce you into purchasing vases?"

"Not yet."

"English learning su-supplies?"

"I wasn't even recommended, so rest assured!"

"Did she—"

"She didn't. Relax. She's not in the date trade. She's a senpai from school," Sakuta told Kaede, gesturing Mai to introduce herself.

"I'm Mai Sakurajima. Nice to meet you," Mai greeted sweetly.

Kaede darted back behind Sakuta when Mai addressed her, like a small animal confronted by a ferocious carnivore. She hid in his shadow for a good fifteen seconds before nervously mumbling back a greeting underneath her breath.

"Umm, she said, 'Nice to meet you. I'm Kaede Azusagawa,'" Sakuta informed.

Nasuno let out a let meow.

Kaede mumbled a bit more into his shoulder.

"'And this is my friend, Nasuno,' she says. He showed the cat in his arms to Mai. It let out another meow and lolled out.

"Thank you for letting me know, Kaede-chan," Mai acknowledged. Kaede showed her face in response to her words, but then abruptly stole Nasuno from Sakuta's arms and ran from the room like a fleeing rabbit. The door crashed shut behind her.

Sakuta straightened his back. Kaede's grip was getting pretty strong. "Sorry about that. She's really shy when it comes to strangers, so forgive her."

"Don't worry about it. I'm glad her injuries seem to have healed properly." Strangely, even the largest of her scars had healed completely. He was really glad of that: Kaede was a girl after all. Yet, there was still the question of why Sakuta's scars completely remained… but that wasn't what they were talking about. So, he concentrated on Mai, who leaned back onto her hands and had her leg. "It's rare to see someone that doesn't know me."

"Well… she doesn't watch much TV," Sakuta offered. It was a half-truth.

"Hmmm." She had a vague expression as if she didn't quite agree.

"Then, getting back to the point. Mai-san, when you said, 'I want to go to a world where no one knows me,' how serious were you?"

"One hundred percent," she spoke with puffing grandeur.

"Really?"

"…There are times I think like that, but then I couldn't order a custard bun, and I wonder how it would work." Mai took the pastry out, held it in both hands, and took a small bite.

"I was asking you seriously."

Mai chewed slowly, then after about ten seconds of savoring the flavor and swishing the crumbs in her mouth, she swallowed and answered, "I was answering seriously. Moods change, don't they?"

"Well, I guess so."

"Then, I have a question, why did you ask me that?"

Sakuta's eyes glanced towards the door to Kaede who had already left.

"In Kaede's case, removing her from the internet more or less solved things."

She couldn't see the social networks, post on discussion board, or use group chats. Sakuta had cancelled Kaede's smartphone contract and thrown the phone into the sea along with his own. There were no outlets to the internet in their home, not even a laptop computer.

"'More or less', huh?"

"Her doctor said that it was the same as people that thought their stomach hurt, and then it begins hurting," Sakuta explained. "… Our parents and the medical people decided the wounds were inflicted by Kaede herself."

Sakuta hadn't agreed with everything the doctor had said, but there were some parts of the explanation he could agree with. Being insulted by her friends tore up her heart, and the mental injuries would appear on her body. There was nothing else you could think from seeing Kaede, and the sensation of her mental state influencing her physical body was understandable. Everyone had experiences like… feeling bad and becoming unhealthy, feeling like they'd vomit from seeing food they didn't like, or feeling sick around a swimming pool or...

So, while the scope was completely different, 'thinking her stomach hurt and so on' sounded relevant to Sakuta.

"And so?"

"The point is, the reason she was wounded was because of Kaede's assumptions of what people were talking about."

"I got that. You're saying that has something to do with my situation?"

"After all, Mai-san, you're playing the role of the 'atmosphere' at school, aren't you? How you're going along with how everyone pretends you're not there."

"…" Mai's expression didn't change. But she showed a hint of being interested in her eyes. They said 'so?', as if coldly urging Sakuta on. Ordinary people wouldn't have been able to manage that.

"Well, so the situation doesn't get any worse, I think you should go back to show business," Sakuta said it lightly while looking away.

"Why is that?!"

"If you stand out on TV, no matter how well you play the 'unnoticeable' at school, people won't be able to ignore you, just like before your break."

"Hmm."

"And I think you being able to do what you want would be great too," continued Sakuta, as he glanced at her to judge her reaction.

Mai's eyebrows moved in surprise. It was the tiniest change that one wouldn't have noticed without looking carefully for it.

"And what would those things I want to do be?"

Her tone was still frank.

"To return to show business," Sakuta urged.

"When did I say such a thing?" Mai let out a sigh and appeared disgusted, but the expression was all off.

"If you weren't interested, why did you have a regretful look when you were looking at that advertisement on the train?

"It was a novel I liked, so I was interested. I don't get what you mean by 'regretful.'"

It was simply a novel she liked, yet, she had known exactly what he had referred to. It had been the novel Sakuta had seen her check out at the library: _The Delicate Flower_.

"You didn't want to play the heroine, yourself, then?"

"You're being obstinate, Sakuta-kun." Mai rolled her eyes. "Where are you getting these ideas? I don't."

"Well, I think it's a good thing to have something you want to do again. You've got the ability, and you've got the record. On top of that, you've got a manager wanting you to come back, so what's the problem?"

"…It has nothing to do with those," Mai spoke quietly, but the words were controlled, with the air of a rumble behind them. As proof of that, Mai's eyebrows lowered into a glare. "Don't try to meddle in things in you don't understand."

It seemed like he'd touched a nerve as Mai stood up silently.

"Ah, if you need the toilet, it's out and to your right."

"I'm leaving." Mai picked up her bag and flung the door open.

"Kya!" A scream came from Kaede, who had put brought tea on a tray and just arrived in front of the door. Even though she was in her pajamas earlier, she was now wearing a white blouse and a skirt. "U-umm, umm… I brought tea."

Kaede was completely panicked in front of Mai, who looked the part of an awfully angry demon. The tray and tea set jittered like an earthquake was occurring.

"Oh my." Mai's expression completely changed into a brief smile and took a cup and draining it in a single gulp. Mai gave a small courteous nod toward his sister before remarking, "It was tasty. Thank you, Kaede-chan."

Carefully, Mai placed the cup back on the trembling tray that Kaede was holding and marched towards the entryway.

Sakuta hurriedly came out of the room and chased after her.

"Ah, wait, Mai-san!"

"What!?"

Mai was putting on her shoes.

"You forgot this." He held up the paper bag with the bunny suit.

"You can have it!" Mai yelled back angrily.

Sakuta ran his hand through his hair with panicked guilt. "…Then at least let me walk you home."

"It's nearby, so it's fine!" Mai returned, slamming the door.

Sakuta stared at the door for a few moments before looking down at the bag.

What was he going to do with a bunny girl costume...?


	3. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** VCRx does not own Rascal Does Not Dream. Rights belong to Hajime Kamoshida and Aniplex! Thanks!

_One day, Sakuta Azusagawa notices a wild bunny girl at the local library. But it is not simply any bunny girl, she's a senpai from his school, that so happens to be an actress on hiatus. However, something's off: Nobody seems to be able to see or hear her. It is almost like she doesn't exist, and Sakuta will soon discover, it might become just that._

* * *

**Rascal Does Not Dream of:**

**A Beautiful Bunny Girl Senpai C2**

* * *

**May ****6****th-****9****th **

Despite his resolve to try, Sakuta wasn't able to apologize to Mai the next day. He didn't see Mai show up to school that day, or the next, or the next, or the next. Each time, he'd put initiative into waking up early and getting to school before the crowds, so that he'd wait for her at the Shichirigahama station to greet her, but she never appeared.

He even thought to go to her classroom during breaks, but he hadn't found her then either. When he spoke to one of her classmates near the door, the girl answered with hesitation, "Sakurajima-san? Mhm, did she come in today?"

The girl turned toward a friend she had been conversing with, in which the next girl would reply, "Uh, she was here yesterday. I think."

They'd point over to a desk second row from the windows at the very back of the room. The classroom Mai was absent from was filled with laughter of boys and chatter of girls. Apparently, the atmosphere of break time wouldn't change much between second and third year.

When he imagined Mai, isolated and alone in this crowd, his chest tightened a little.

After spying Mai's bag next to the otherwise unoccupied desk, Sakuta reluctantly returned to his own classroom at the sound of the bell.

Each break afterward, he would run to that third-year classroom, but each time, Mai wasn't there. Her bag would remain on the floor by the desk, but the subject books were arranged on the desk differently each time he looked. He was certain she was at class that day, but during breaks, she'd just disappear.

Sakuta's last hope for that week was when school let out for the weekend, Sakuta rushed to the entrance. He'd look for Mai, as students flooded out of the campus, searching for about twenty minutes. Once he knew he wouldn't find her there, he left to the station, but of course she wasn't there either.

In the end, he hadn't even managed see her face even once for the rest of that week, let alone be able to apologize.

* * *

**May 2****3rd **

That routine ended up lasting another two weeks, and at that point, even an idiot would've figure she was avoiding him. Somehow, she was still avoiding him perfectly. Some days, he would wait at Fujisawa Station, in case she'd sneaked on a later train back, but even those attempts hadn't born fruit. She'd must've been walking to another pair of stations and was catching the train from there, or she was somehow catching a ride by car.

At any rate, she was making it all rather difficult. She was probably using techniques she'd picked up in the world of showbiz for avoiding news cameras and disappearing like the mist when the time came to.

_I guess I touched an absolutely massive nerve._

That thought had strengthened as day after day went by with Mai's stubborn behavior. That made him think back to the moment when she had left full of anger. Something he had said had caused her to lose it, and the only thing he thought might've been it was her manager…

Before they'd boarded the train that Monday, she'd received a call from her manager. She'd immediately declined the call, citing she 'already knew what that damn woman wanted.'

It must've had something to do with her manager. It was something so bad that it had made Mai walk away from the career she enjoyed. But what was with her manager? If it was something with that particular one, couldn't she find a new manager?

When Sakuta tried using the school computer to look up things about Mai, he could only find worthless rumors, gossip like 'overwork,' 'something must've happened with her producer,' 'it's got to be a guy,' and Yuuma's aforementioned pillow business. It got to the point where the only thing he could do better was ask her directly, but Mai was still perfectly avoiding Sakuta.

With no one where else to go to for his troubles, Sakuta decided after school that day to change his approach a little. After waiting at the entrance one last time to find Mai, he walked over to the physics lab to meet his other friend.

Sakuta lightly knocked on the door and opened without waiting for a response. "I'm going to intrude."

"You're intruding, so get out," a voice replied as he closed the door quietly behind him.

In the large lab was a single student who was preparing an alcohol burner and a beaker on the teacher's desk. She didn't even make a glance at Sakuta as he walked up to her.

She was a shorter girl, only reaching 5'1, with long, dark brown hair that draped half-way down her back. She wore comfortable glasses and a white lab coat that covered her uniform.

Her name was Rio Futaba, a second-year student at Minegahara High School. She had been in the same class as Sakuta and Yuuma Kunimi last year and was the sole member of the science club. Like him, she was also considered a social outcast, bring known as the weirdo that sometimes caused power outages or small fires while performing experiments. The fact that she constantly wore her lab-coat was another reason that she drew attention.

Sakuta took a nearby chair and sat down in front of her with the desk between them.

"How have you been?" Sakuta asked. He hadn't seen Rio in the last few weeks. They had both been busy with their own lives.

"Nothing has happened that I would report to you, Azusagawa."

"Tell me something fun."

Rio raised her signature 'always-tired' gaze and made a decisive glare at Sakuta. "Don't drag me into conversations that would happen between high-schoolers with too much time on their hands."

"But we really are high schoolers with too much time on their hands. We can act like it."

Rio ignored Sakuta's attempt of conversation and lit the burner with a match. She set it under the beaker, which was full of water.

He wondered what kind of experiment she was planning.

"What have you been up to, Azusagawa?"

Sakuta grinned. "Well. I don't personally have much to report."

"Liar," Rio accused while she was adjusting the flame. The hue began to switch from a dim orange to a vibrant blue. "You've been obsessed with a certain child actress lately, haven't you?"

Without even needing to think about it, he knew she referring to Mai.

"She graduated from being a child actress a long time ago," Sakuta told. "Anyway, who'd you hear that from?"

"That's a stupid question," she rolled her eyes.

"Well, it'd only be Kunimi."

Yuuma was the only one that would know about things in Sakuta's life. He was also the only one besides Sakuta that spoke to Rio.

"I've been worrying that you've been sticking your nose into strange places again, Azusagawa."

"What's with that 'again'?" Sakuta huffed.

"I'm worried about how there are people who try to look after a good-for-nothing such as yourself - Kunimi is too kind."

"I try to keep Kunimi as uninvolved with my 'good-for-nothing' deeds as much as possible." Saluta looked at the flame with an unfocused gaze.

Rio was looking at Sakuta pityingly. "The world is unfair, isn't it? It's unfair that people are so different."

"Stop comparing me to Kunimi."

"I'm mocking you; don't worry about it."

"I doubt it's purely jest."

Rio nodded with a sigh as the water began to boil. "At least you got over Makinohara."

"…Why do you and Kunimi both bring that up?"

"Don't you get it better than anyone, Azusagawa?" Rio asked. She extinguished the burner and poured the boiling water into a mug with some brown powder she had set aside.

The warm smell of instant coffee met his senses. Apparently it wasn't an experiment.

"Hey, give me some too."

"Unfortunately, I have only one cup. You'd have to use this measuring cylinder." Rio calmly held out a thin thirty-milliliter cylinder.

"If I drank out of that, it'd be gone in a single sip."

"We have nothing else to use."

"Why not use the beaker you boiled the water in?" Sakuta pointed.

"That was boring, too obvious." Even as she complained, Rio removed a can of instant coffee from a drawer and put a spoonful of it into the remaining water in the beaker.

"Any sugar, Futaba?"

"I don't take any. I prefer black… You can try this though." Rio reached in the same drawer as before before thumping a bottle of white powder down in front of Sakuta. It's label, however, spelled out 'Manganese Dioxide.'

"Is this okay…"

"It's probably sugar. It's white after all," Rio sipped her coffee.

"Even I know there are plenty of white powders," Sakuta remarked. He also knew that manganese dioxide was black. He sighed, as it had become apparent Rio wasn't going to entertain any meaningless conversation. He decided to go with why he had came in the first place: "Hey, do you think things can become unseeable?"

"If you're worried about your vision, why not go see an optometrist?"

"No. I don't mean about eyesight… I mean not being able to see things even though they're there, kind of like the invisible man."

Mai Sakurajima also had the issue of being inaudible, which was a big difference, but Sakuta thought maybe he'd tackle one problem at a time.

"And what? Would you sneak into the girl's toilets?" Rio yawned.

"I'm not into scat, so let's leave it at the changing rooms."

"That's you all right - a simple, low-life rascal."

Rio reached a hand into her coat and took out her phone.

"Who are you calling?"

"The police."

"The police wouldn't do anything before a crime happens."

"That's true." Rio conceded, returning her phone to its pocket. "Back to your earlier question, the mechanism behind sight is in the physics textbook. You just need to study light and lenses."

Rio put a physics book in front of him with a thud.

"Reading that would be rather boring, so I'm asking you." Sakuta politely shoved the book back her direction.

Rio groaned with annoyance. But Sakuta wouldn't leave before he received answers, and so, she recomposed herself.

"Fine," Rio drawled, "The basics behind sight. I'll simplify it, for your sake. Light is the important thing. They're small little particles that fly all around at astronomical speeds. When they hit an object, they are reflected off of it, taking the information of what it hit looks like. Sometimes, they enter your eye, and that is how people can see shape and color. That's also why you can't see things in the dark. There's no light to carry information to you."

"Reflections? Huh."

"If you don't get it, think of echolocation. Remember last year with that unit in sea-life? How Dolphins use ultrasonics?"

"Something about measuring the distance between them and an obstacle by listening to the how their ultrasonic waves bounce back?"

"That's right. It seems they can also distinguish the shape of things as well. Sonar on boats is the same. Your senses just decipher the signals they're sent automatically."

"Hmmm."

"So things that don't reflect light, like transparent glass, are hard to see."

"Ahh, okay." Then, it could be that light was not hitting Mai. That happening to just a single performer on hiatus was so unlikely it wasn't even funny. Or maybe he could think of it like light not reflecting from her like glass… but there were a lot of ways that didn't fit. Her voice, and the fact that there were people that could and couldn't see her. It was a complicated situation. "...I kind of get what you're on about."

"Really?" She looked at him dubiously.

"You must think I'm an idiot."

"Not at all."

"Then, you think I'm a super idiot?"

"I think you're an annoyance that goes out of his way to say something like that when he can guess what I want to say."

"You're the annoyance."

"I think you're the unpleasant kind of person that pretends he doesn't get what's going on, even though he does."

"My bad. Stop gouging at me, would you?"

"You would be able to get out of it so easily." Rio slurped her coffee, unimpressed.

He should bring the conversation back on track.

"Umm, then I'll put some conditions on it. Is it possible for you to not be able to see me anymore when I'm just sitting in front of you like this?"

"If I close my eyes, yes."

"With your eyes open, looking straight at me."

"It's possible." Rio's answer was the exact opposite of what he imagined, and it came so readily too. "If I were to concentrate on something and zone out, I wouldn't notice you anymore."

Sakuta shook his head. "No, I think I'm dealing with something different from that."

"Well, going a bit deeper, from a different point of view other than light, 'seeing' is influenced much more by a person's mind than reality." Apparently, she had finished her coffee, and filled another beaker with water and put it above the burner. "For example, I might look small to you, but a middle-schooler would call me big."

"So things that are visible can become subjective?"

"In a way. Size is subjective, based on one's perspective. It's a stretch, but existence could be as well. If there was a small ant that was on the floor beneath us, we might not notice it and see it, even though it is there. Does it matter if it actually exists if we do not observe it? Or maybe with sound, you might hear someone, but you're focused on something else, and the sounds blurr away into the background. You might hear them, but you're subconsciously filtering them out. Does it matter if they're talking?"

Just like there were the phrases 'pretending not to see something', 'not considering something', 'paying no notice to something', and 'not focusing on something,' there were many ways to say it, but he could agree with a lot of it.

Perhaps everyone simply did not want to see Mai… Although that didn't sound a hundred percent correct.

Sakuta thought back on signals and realized Mai was playing along with the role that the atmosphere had given her; being quiet and unnoticeable and letting the sense to not look at her persevere.

"There's also something called observation theory."

"Observation theory?" Sakuta asked, now paying closer attention. It was like she'd been able to listen in on his thoughts.

"Putting it extremely, it's that everything first needs to have its existence defined through the observation of someone else… it's an unthinkable theory normally." Rio spoke rather unemotionally. "You should have heard of a cat in a box, Schrödinger's Cat."

"I've heard the term."

Rio took an empty cardboard box from under the desk and placed it in front of Sakuta.

"You put a cat in here," she pointed. As she spoke, Rio next brough over a beckoning cat money-box in placed it inside. It was the one that the physics teacher used to collect his change. "Now, imagine you place a radioactive source that has a mean radiation probability of an hour."

"One hour."

"Yep," she popped the 'p.' Rio placed the beaker that Sakuta had drain next to the cat. "Lastly, we put a container of poisonous gas that will open if it sense radiation. If the cat breathes the gas, it dies."

Finally, Rio placed the plastic 'Manganese Dioxide' bottle into the box before placing another piece of cardboard on top as a lid.

"Now, we let it sit for thirty minutes."

"Is this a cooking show?"

Rio ignored his interruption and continued, "What do you think happened to the cat?"

"Hmm, there's a probability of it emitting radiation once in an hour? Then, the poison gas container detects that and opens?"

Rio nodded tiredly.

Sakuta did the calculation in his head. "Thirty minute is half of that, so… it's a half probability?"

"I'm surprised you understood."

"If I didn't get that much, I'd either be a proper idiot or must not be listening," Sakuta complained at Rio's indirect criticization.

"So then, is the cat alive or dead?"

"It's fifty-fifty, right? You can just shake the box."

"The box is metal and can't be moved."

It was a cardboard box in front of him.

"Then, I'll believe it's alive."

"Whatever guess you make, it doesn't matter in this situation."

Sakuta blinked. "Then don't ask."

"There's nothing to do to 'define' the cat's state other than look."

"That's a pretty normal method."

Rio opened the box and, of course, the beckoning cat money box, the beaker, and the manganese dioxide bottle were inside.

"The instant the box is opened, the cat's fate is defined. In other words, until you open the box and check, the cat is half alive and half dead. In the world of quantum mechanics at least, it's neither and both at the same time, the state of superposition."

"What's with that logic? What if it died after ten minutes? Wouldn't the cat have been dead even if you didn't have the extra twenty minutes before opening it?"

Or at least for the cat, its person-hood would be over. No, it'd be cat-hood in this case… either way, the result was the same.

"That's why I said it was an unthinkable theory. Well, even leaving the explanation of quantum mechanics aside, I think the way of thinking about things itself has some truth to it."

"Truth, huh?"

"People see the world as they expect. That rumor about you is a good example. People give precedence to the theory even over the truth. If you were the cat in the box, and the other students are the observers, you could think of reality being substituted, no?"

It seemed she was trying to say… it wasn't the circumstances within the box, it was the subjectivity of those that saw it afterwards that mattered. It had nothing to do with Sakuta, the person in question. The image of Sakuta was decided by the observers.

"That's not even funny…"

However, it was hard to reconcile it with Mai's situation. Sakuta could see her and others couldn't, and he didn't get what kind of conditions or prerequisites to becoming invisible would require. It had been interesting, but he had the feeling that the pieces didn't quite fit. Besides, an unproven phenomenon like Adolescence Syndrome might not be able to be explained physically or logically. It seemed like some of their conversation could be clues, but discussing it with Rio seemed to have made it more difficult.

Just returning to show-business might not solve Mai's problem, and an unpleasant feeling settled in Sakuta's chest. Rio had talked about people seeing from beginning to end so… a change in Mai's mental state alone might not be any help.

"This is supplementary, but there are physical examples of observation changing the outcome."

"Wait. Seriously?"

"There's something called the double slit experiment… To give a quick explanation, observing the experiment through its course could have a different result from when you only observe it afterwards."

"So, it would be like… if the Japanese football team had played a match and if I checked the score afterward they'll win, but if I went and watched they'll lose?"

"What I'm talking about is only applicable to particles: the microscopic world. Before it's observed, a particle's position is probabilistic, and it's a waveform, not matter. Observing it confines it to matter."

"But when you put all that micro stuff together, it makes people and things, right?"

Even Sakuta knew that people and things were made up of molecules, atoms, electrons, and various other things.

"If what I was saying occurred in the macroscopic world, your explanation would be fine. Also, you should never watch football again for the sake of our team. Don't look twice."

"Do not worry. I never wa-"

Suddenly, the school intercoms blared out: "Would Yuuma Kunimi from class 2-2 please come to the staffroom to see the basketball club's adviser, Sano-sensei."

"Did he do something?"

"He's not you. It's probably something related to confirming their training schedule." She didn't seem interested, but Rio always sided with Yuuma.

As he looked at the speaker, he checked the time. A little past three. He'd have to get on the next train if he was going to get to his shift on time. "I guess I have everything I need," he said with reluctance.

"Then just leave."

"Thanks for everything; the coffee was great too."

"If you're going to thank someone, thank the physics teacher. It's not mine," Rio picked up the coffee jar and showed him the name on its lid.

"Well, he won't notice a little missing," he said and stood, putting his bag on his shoulder and walking out. As he touched the door, he suddenly remembered something and looked back. Rio was tending a gas burner flame like she really intended to do an experiment this time.

"Futaba."

"Hmm?" She only acknowledged him verbally and kept her gaze on the pale blue flame.

"Are you alright about Kunimi?"

"Get out," she spat.

"Alrighty," he followed her command.

Apparently, she wasn't 'alright.' However, Sakuta wasn't able to follow up on her, as he needed to catch the 3:15 train for his shift at four.

Sakuta worked as a waiter at a small family-operated diner just across the street from Fujisawa Station, called Benny's. It was a prime location, and thus was quite busy during lunch and dinner rush hours. It employed many part-time workers like himself to cover the busiest of crowds.

The first two hours were uneventful, save for a child who had thrown a chopstick across the restaurant into another customer's soup. However it was near dinner-rush when:

"Azusagawa-kun, take your break before we get the dinner rush," the manager told him.

"Right." Sakuta cruised into the break room, just as Yuuma was entering through the back door in his uniform. Despite coming straight from club activities, Yuuma showed no signs of being tired.

Yuuma noticed Sakuta. "Yo."

"Hey," Sakuta replied to Yuuma as the latter fastened his apron.

"Are you on break?"

"I'd be out front, otherwise."

Yuuma neatly tied on his apron, before checking his appearance in a mirror. Then, as if remembering something, he spoke, "Ah, oh right, Sakuta."

"Hmm?"

Sakuta sat on a pipe chair and poured himself some tea.

"You've been hiding something from me," Yuuma started.

"What's with that phrasing? Are you now my girlfriend?"

For a moment, Sakuta was startled, thinking it was something about Rio, but it was a different name that left Yuuma's mouth. "It's not a joke, I wanted to talk to you about Kamisato."

"Ahh." Sakuta looked away as he relaxed. Kamisato wasn't something he wanted to touch on either, but there was no avoiding it now. "Your girlfriend is amazing."

"Right. She's my wonderful girlfriend."

"She told me not to talk to you."

"She wants me all to herself - I can imagine," Yuuma nodded. "She loves me that much."

"Apparently, I make you look bad. How bad are you now?"

"Disgusting." Yuuma put his hands together and bowed before bursting into laughter. "You're plain horrible."

"Thanks," Sakuta chuckled as he stretched his arms. "You know, you're amazing too."

"Where's this coming from?"

"Kamisato is so inciteful, yet you won't say a word against her."

Yuuma shrugged. "Well yeah, I'm going out with her because I love her. She sometimes comes across a bit fierce, but she's a good, honest girl."

Sakuta had a feeling she was a bit too honest, but he kept that to himself. "You sound like a wife getting abused by her husband."

"What? The 'he's sometimes kind' type? Don't be stupid."

"I don't know…"

"Shut up, man."

Sakuta nodded. "Don't worry about me, though. Whatever she says won't hurt. Not even a tickle."

"Good. I don't have to choose."

"But it can't be fun to hear me complain about your girlfriend..." Sakuta said.

"Don't worry about it."

"That's not fair to Kamisato."

"Ah, that's true." Yuuma gave a carefree smile. "Anyway, it's fine. Just don't hid it from me if she becomes a pest. It'll just make me angry."

"I'm not taking responsibility if you get in a fight with her."

"I'll cross that bridge when I get to it… I sort of feel like she'll be more focused on you, so it's fine."

Yuuma spoke of annoyance so easily.

"Ok."

Yuuma smiled triumphantly, shaking his head. "You're just something else, being able to ask a girl, 'Are you on your period?' What's your heart? Is it made of stone?"

"I've been told that by a few people already. Maybe I should see a cardiologist."

"You should," Kunimi cackled, before noticing the time. He hurried swiped his time card, "Ah crap! Clocking innnn!"

And then he headed out into the hall.

But, before even a minute had passed, he was back in the break room. Maybe he'd forgotten something, though Sakuta couldn't see anything he would have.

Yuuma's gaze fell on him without hesitation, and he looked like he wanted to say something.

"What?"

"...That woman's here again." Yuuma's expression was closed off, and there was a hint of worry mixed in with the seriousness upon his face, telling Sakuta that it was a customer that Sakuta should personally greet.

Sakuta reluctantly ignored his break and went out into the hall, heading to table near the front windows. In the booth sat a woman in the latter half of her twenties. She was wearing a knee-length skirt and a short-sleeved blouse that had a touch of a fresh spring day about it. She had natural looking makeup that allowed a slight air of an intellectual or professional. However, she was anything but…

"May I take your order?" asked Sakuta with a blank, un-recognizing expression.

"It's been a while," the woman glanced at him rather hungrily.

"Who would you be, again?"

"I see, that's how it is. Well then, it is nice to meet you. This is who I am." The woman held out her business card with polite movements.

The card had the logo of a large news-firm in Tokyo, her position as a newswoman and her name: Fumika Nanjou.

However, Sakuta was already fully aware who she was.

They'd met when Sakuta was still in middle school. Nanjou had been a struggling journalist at the time, assigned a piece on "Problems of Bullying in Middle School" when she had encountered Kaede's story.

"Why are you here?" Sakuta sighed.

"I was doing a small story on young sardines in the area when I'd finished early. I'm rather peckish, so I came to the best little diner in town," she replied rather cheerfully.

Sakuta's expression remained unmoving at her false innocence. He knew what she was after. When she covered bullying, she'd caught interest in Adolescence Syndrome. Of course, she didn't outright believe in the urban legend, but Kaede's story could've been a big scoop if he'd given her details. That was nearly two years ago, but perhaps it was sheer stubbornness, or a natural nose for a story, as she'd been following he and Kaede ever since.

"If you're free, why not invite a baseball player on a date? I'm sure they have more interesting things to say."

"It's a charming suggestion, but all the teams are working seeing as it's baseball season," she said with a curved lip. Fumika turned a suggestive look on him. "Besides, I have something far more stimulating here."

"I don't have any interest in old women," Sakuta said immediately.

"A kid like you just doesn't know an adult's charms." She looked up at his face as she held a finger to her cheek.

"I know that you're fatter than when we met three months ago. Your upper arm is looking pretty bad too."

"…Huh?!" Her eyebrows jerked upwards and she sat back in her chair, somewhat poutily and said. "You're not cute."

"You could at least say handsome… your order?"

"One Sakuta-kun to go."

"You seem somewhat ill, so I'll order an ambulance," he returned dully.

"I'll take the cheesecake and drink set with a hot coffee," she ordered without looking at the menu. Every time she came here, Fumika would order the same thing. How would he put it? It was kind of like a man's action.

"Is that all?"

"Do you still not feel like talking about the incident?" Fumika took out her smartphone from her bag and started checking her emails.

"Never."

"I just want a photo of the scars on your chest."

"No."

"Why?" She scrolled the screen with her finger.

"Then would you let me take a picture of you naked, Nanjou-san?"

"Just for personal use, okay? I'd be fired if it found its way onto the internet." It seemed that talking with her any further would be stupid, and Sakuta left without replying.

But, after two or three steps, he suddenly thought of something.

"Um." He returned and spoke to her.

"Hm?" She replied absently, still looking at her phone.

"Nanjou-san, do you know... Mai Sakurajima?" he said with a slight hesitation.

"Is there anyone that doesn't?" Fumika's gaze was still focused on her emails.

"Do you know… why she took a hiatus?"

He knew that Fumika worked as a variety show assistant and used to do coverage in show-business as well.

She looked at him in puzzlement, probably wondering why he was asking about Mai Sakurajima, before quickly taking on another expression. She was interested that he'd ask that, but even if that showed on her face, she didn't say it. "I think I know some things normal folks don't..."

She leered.

After his shift, Sakuta stopped by the station bakery, ordering a custard bun to-go. He'd made a small habit of purchasing them on his way home every so often. He wasn't particularly fond of them, but it was possibly the one honest detail he knew of Mai Sakurajima. It had nothing to do with her career, her looks or her circumstances. Custard buns was simply Mai, and they were the only connection he had left with her; the only proof he'd even known her...

As he walked through the streets, he thought on what he and Futaba had discussed earlier that afternoon. He thought about how senses like sight could be warped depending on one's point of view and thus were subjective to the eye of the beholder. He thought on how this fact could relate to Mai.

Mai was like the cat who was put in the box.

No - Mai was the cat who put itself in a box. She'd said it weeks ago, she wished that no one noticed her. By enclosing herself, she had pulled a curtain over her very existence…

Her existence...

Futaba had said something about existence.

'_Everything first needs to have its existence defined through the observation of someone else…'_

He began running.

If something's existence needed confirmation in order to exist… Then perhaps Mai was…

He ran. He ran through his neighborhood. He ran to his apartment complex. He ran up the stairs and up to the third floor, not knowing what to do. Mai had mentioned she lived nearby. He needed to check…

Sakuta stopped, as he saw a crumpled form sitting against the wall beside his apartment door.

His heart was racing.

Sitting there, adorned in her Minegahara school uniform and pink bunny hair clip, with her knees up and arms around them was the girl that had been on his mind for weeks.

He eased his breathing.

Mai looked up reproachfully at the sound of his footsteps which echoed against the concrete floor. "You're finally home," she said with relief.

"Did you missed me that much?" Sakuta sighed, holding back a smile.

Mai held her stomach as it growled.

"I am so hungry," he jeered monotonously.

"You have an awful personality."

"Eh, I know," he smirked. He looked down at the pastry bag he was holding before bringing it up towards her. After some slight hesitation, she reached her hand out and took it.

He felt like he was feeding a stray cat.

Mai opened the package reluctantly before succumbing to her stomach and quickly taking out and biting into the bun.

"When did you turn into the hungry type?"

Mai continued chewing silently and, after swallowing considerately, said, "I can't shop."

Her tone made it sound like it was Sakuta's fault.

"Ah, I see."

Other people couldn't see her, so she couldn't do everything she planned. Just like how it happened when she tried to by a custard bun from the bakery at the station and the woman seemed to ignore her. It had been a pitiful scene.

"It's gotten worse," Mai said, her mouth savoring the bun. "I've become invisible in more places. The area around Fujisawa Station is no good. I've even tried buying things online, but I can't receive the parcel, so it's the same thing... I haven't been able to buy new food for almost two weeks.

Sakuta held out a hand to pull her up. She accepted it, and got her to her feet. Sakuta took out his key and gestured at the door. "So, will you come in?"

"Treat me to food."

"That's a weird way of putting it," he said. Mai glared steadily at him but was unfortunately not scary in the slightest. In fact, how her redden, puffed cheeks made her look rather cute. "I'll do so then."

"Forget it." Mai hit his head with the edge of her hand.

"Ow."

"I'm not going into a boy's room this time at night. It'd insinuate too much."

"Too much of what?" he chuckled innocently.

"Don't be thinking stupid things. Just come shopping with me."

"...Then wait a bit. I need to tell my sister I'm home and get changed."

Mai turned her back slowly on Sakuta as he turned the key. "...Okay. I'll wait downstairs."

It took Sakuta nearly twenty minutes to get changed and calm Kaede for bed and another fifteen to pacify Mai for taking so long. Suffice to say, after their ten-minute stroll to Fujisawa Market, it was already well past 10 pm.

Luckily, the supermarket stayed open well into evenings, closing half past midnight. The place still had a good share of customers, mostly young men in suits scattered about. They probably lived alone and were shopping after long shifts.

Fujisawa Market was the same store that Sakuta frequented, but it was rare for him to come at this hour. It was an invigorating experience. In fact, it was even better than invigorating, as he wasn't alone. He was accompanied by Mai, who was ahead picking out produce while Sakuta followed along with the cart.

"This definitely makes us look like a couple…" Sakuta murmured giddily.

"Huh, did you say something?" Mai looked over her shoulder at him. She held a carrot in each hand.

"Nope."

She laughed. "It's fine. Besides, no one can see me."

Apparently, she had heard.

"I wonder if this will finally be the time when a girl stops over and cooks for me…"

"If you keep having stupid delusions, you'll end up disappointed," Mai warned. She returned one of the carrots to the shelf with a disparaging look.

"You are right. I dreamt you to be a good cook," Sakuta agreed. "Disappointed, I am destined to be."

"I would let you know, I am a fabulous cook."

"Oh? Care to prove me wrong?"

"Delusions, Sakuta-kun." Mai rolled her eyes.

"Speaking of delusions… I wonder, what does that carrot look like to the people that can't see you. Is it floating?"

"It seems to be invisible," Mai answered immediately. Perhaps she had already experimented. Mai proceeded to waver the carrot in front of a passing worker's face, to which gave no reaction. "See?"

"So it does."

"I tried taking a cart to a cashier before too, but that didn't work either. The line would just cease, and people would somehow manage to go around me anyway. Besides, they can't seem to see my clothes either, can they?" That was true. It was completely different from Mai herself being invisible. It seemed many things she'd interact with would follow suit, like her clothes. There was also the fact no one seemed to hear her either. "I wonder if things become invisible if I touch them."

"By that logic, the Earth would be invisible."

"That's thinking big."

"I'm a big guy."

"Right…" Mai grumbled, while she placed the carrot into the cart. She switched her attention to the red onions.

"What would happen… if you touched me?" Sakuta voiced.

"Is that an indirect way of appealing me to hold hands with you?"

"No," Sakuta denied. "Just… suggesting an experiment."

He had already experienced her touch that afternoon when she'd been over at his apartment and she'd brushed her finger on his scars. But no one had been around during that moment. If it worked for her clothes and the carrot, then perhaps…

"I won't hold hands for a reason like that," Mai deftly rejected, putting a few onions in a produce bag before walking briskly the other direction.

Sakuta ran after her with the cart. "I was hiding my embarrassment by calling it an experiment. I just wanted to hold hands," he painfully conceded.

"And?" Mai stopped. She was smiling over her shoulder.

Sakuta left the cart and got down to one knee and held his hand out like a proposal. "I've never held hands with a girl before, so please be my first."

"…That's a tad creepy," Mai commented with a blush. "But well, you pass."

Mai offered her hand, which Sakuta gratefully accepted. Warmth soon enveloped the right side of his body as she put her arm in his.

Due to her height, her face was right beside his. She was close enough for him to count every individual lash that perfectly outlined her violet eyes.

He would've failed a polygraph right then.

He left the cart along the wall, and the two began walking around, hand in hand. As time passed, he became more and more aware of the soft sensation of her chest pressing into him.

He'd seen her in that rather seductive bunny girl outfit, but even without it, it was difficult to not look, as she certainly had some curves. The faint floral fragrance of her perfume made his head swirl.

"You're having perverted thoughts, aren't you?" Mai playfully quipped.

"My thoughts are a hundred times more perverted that what you are imagining."

Mai suddenly separated at his honesty.

"But well, since you're an adult, you would be fine with that," Sakuta informed.

"That's right. I think nothing of younger boys having erotic fantasies with me." Mai stubbornly re-latched onto his arm.

Hard.

"Wah?!" Sakuta couldn't help but let out the squeal of surprise. A nearby worker glanced at him quizzingly, and their eyes met. The man could definitely see him, but he didn't seem to have noticed Mai. She was still invisible.

"This is your punishment for being provocative," Mai mused. She only tightened her grip. Apparently, she was gradually becoming more comfortable. That said, Mai's punishment wasn't at all a punishment. It was rather enjoyable.

Sakuta squirmed as another customer was gave a weird glance at him too. He couldn't imagine what people saw. "I can't really walk well. My pan-"

"Fine." Mai let go, in apparent boredom. She'd been smiling with delight a moment ago; the speed with which her attitude changed was unsettling, and he didn't know if she was being serious or acting. It was a bit of a shame, but he still got plenty of enjoyment during the rest of the shopping trip.

There was a slight amount of unease when Sakuta went to pay for the food. Mai didn't carry cash, and neither of them wanted to see Sakuta get arrested for using a card with another person's name. And so, Sakuta ended up digging into his own savings which left Mai holding a rather guilty expression, but Sakuta told her they'd square it away when she was visible again.

They left the store, Sakuta with a large bag in each hand and walked home alongside one another. However, Sakuta didn't know where 'home' was.

"Mai-san," Sakuta spoke. "Where do you live?"

Shopping by Fujisawa Station would mean she lived within walking distance.

"Earth," she replied with disinterest. Sakuta had no other choice but just follow her obediently, but as he followed her, he noticed they were taking the same route they took from his place.

"I am looking forward to finally seeing your house," Sakuta murmured.

"You're not coming in."

"Ehhhh?"

"Don't try whining: It won't work. Besides, we're still fighting, aren't we?"

Sakuta shook his head. "It's because you're not being honest."

Mai slowed to a halt. "And when exactly, was I dishonest to you?"

"I am not talking about being dishonest to me. I'm talking about how you keep lying to yourself. You keep going on, even though you want to return to acting."

"…Don't bring up things that don't concern you." Her words were spoken like a whisper, yet held the energy of a scream. It was a rejection. It was more of the same denial as that afternoon weeks ago. "You don't know anything."

"I know about the photo book," Sakuta told.

The air stilled as Mai's breathing stopped. Her form became rigid.

He continued, "Back in middle school, I remember seeing a magazine with you in a swimsuit, even though it was said you were notoriously known to hate showing skin. It was because your mother had signed you into a contract behind your back and forced you to work." With each word, Mai's composure weakened. Her legs loosened, and her head angled downward. Her arms wounded tightly against her sides. It was enough proof that Fumika's information was correct. "You fought with your mother and there was a huge feud before you got your revenge on your mother in the best way possible. You withdrew and went on–"

"Be quiet…"

"–But that was completely worthless, you quitting."

"Be quiet!"

"You sacrificed your own dreams just so you–"

"Be quiet!"

"No, you're the one that should be quiet. You'll disturb the peop–"

_Smack_.

He'd felt it before he'd even seen her move as Mai had swung around and slapped him so hard on his left cheek, he'd almost lost balance.

"I was still in middle-school!" she screamed. She wasn't even screaming at him; it was more like she was announcing it to the world. "And yet… when they presented me with that swimsuit in that studio… and there were only adults around. I was told the contract was already signed and if I didn't do it–"

Tears began to run down her cheeks but her expression still held pure anger for the world. Her hands were now cupped into fists by her sides…

"– And even though I hated it, I simply had to do my job and wear it. It was hours… I had to force myself to smile!"

If she had been more normal, perhaps she might've spoken up for herself and thrown a tantrum and refused. But, as Sakuta had learned from just the last few weeks with Mai, who did everything with professionality, she would've never.

She'd worked since six, amongst a crowd of adults, and thus was forced from an early age to work with maturity. She'd attended school every day despite no one noticing her; no one caring if she was there or not. She'd refused to steal food, even though she was starving and it would've been child's play to do so.

When she had been forced into those photos, she wouldn't have allowed herself to cause a scene. She had read the atmosphere and acted like an adult, even though she was a child. Even though she perhaps, had had every right to.

"She used me!" Mai spat hoarsely, her voice congested. Her face was all red and her eyes more so. "She didn't see me as anything but a way to make money."

Sakuta could almost relate to Mai's predicament. Mothers should've been the first place to run to in that kind of situation, not cause it. Sakuta's situation had similar, when his mother had refused to… but Mai had it a dozen times worst. Her mother had seen her as just a product, or a simple tool. He wouldn't say he understood the feelings that had run through her heart the last few years. In fact, he couldn't say such a thing. However, there was one thing he was sure of.

"That's why I think you should return to show-business," he told her.

Mai coughed through the tears. "...Why's that?!"

"The fact that you left with those unpleasant feelings is unfair to yourself. You'll have those feelings run with you for the rest of your life. It'll only cause you to resent yourself."

"Eh…"

"If you want to do something, don't hold back. You just do it. Even I know that, so you should definitely know."

Mai's breathing slowed, the tension easing, as if her burning rage had cooled.

A minute of total silence passed between them.

A minute of his cheek throbbing; a minute of Mai regaining her composure.

"I'm sorry for hitting you," Mai apologized quietly, her breathing still haggard. She wiped the tears that stained her face.

"Do you normally hit people that carry your things?" Sakuta pondered.

"I didn't punch you at least."

"Then… Thank you very much," he answered tonelessly.

"You don't sound rather thankful."

"Apologies. I'll make sure to be more enthusiastic when I'm showing my gratitude next time."

"You reap what you sow."

"Eh? And what did I sow?"

Sakuta knew exactly what he had sowed, but he didn't necessarily thought he was in the wrong.

Mai scoffed. "You purposely sought to make me angry," she denounced, with dissatisfied eyes. "You wanted me to get me emotional, so I would say what you wanted me to say."

"Not in the slightest," Sakuta lied.

"You really have got a horrible personality." Mai stretched out to his cheek, but when he thought she'd caress it, she instead pinched it. Couple with the still slight throb of her earlier slap, it really hurt.

"Ow, ow, oww, ow!"

"So Sakuta-kun." Mai had used '-kun' and for a moment he completely forgot she was pinching him, before she pulled him down to eye-level. Her questioning eyes bore into his soul. "Who, incidentally, did you hear that from?"

She wouldn't let him stay silent on the matter, he could tell, and trying to fool her would just cause more trouble for him in the future. Mai knew that it wasn't information just anyone would know. After all, even after two-years, there was not a single rumor that led to this explanation.

"I've got an acquaintance that's a journalist… back from when things happened with Kaede."

"Who?" Mai's eyes tightened, her fingers on his cheek followed suit.

"Ow!"

"Who?!"

"…Fumika Nanjou."

Mai immediately let go, and took a step back. "Ah, her."

"You know her?" Sakuta's eyes widened, rubbing his assailed cheek.

"She was an assistant on that afternoon show I used to do reviews on. She's been kind to me." Mai's tone, however, inferred the opposite. "But how did you get the information out from her? She wouldn't give such information out for free…"

Of course, Mai was aware the value of information. She was, after all, far more knowledgeable about the world of television than he was.

Sakuta waved his hand through his hair in embarrassment. "Ah, well. When they were doing the news piece on Kaede, she had taken interest in Adolescence Syndrome. She saw the scars on my chest, and when I had refused the first time a picture, she knew that my scars were somehow related… She's been following me ever since."

"The first time…you mean you let her have a picture?!" Mai gasped. "You idiot!"

"That's mean."

She glared at him in exasperated rage or pity, he didn't know which. Probably a mixture of both. "You really are! What were you thinking!"

"Well, of you," he explained, truthfully. He couldn't look her in the face, out of fear, and anxiously looked off to the side. "I really am."

Mai huffed, then suddenly held out her hand as if demanding something. He didn't have the slightest idea what she wanted, so he put both bags in one hand and stretched out his other.

Mai slapped it away. "I told you to give me her contact details."

"Huh?" He thought back, but he couldn't remember her saying so.

"It was inferred from our conversation, idiot."

"You're too much like a queen, Mai-san."

"And you're too naïve about the media; naïve enough to be careless. If the media ever takes an interest in you, you'll soon be surrounded by reporters. You could end up getting cameras trained on your house. How Fumika followed you the last two years? They'll be dozens like her, every week. What would happen to you? And Kaede?"

He imagined it just like how she said: the harsh spotlight on someone as if they'd been involved in a scandal, the flash of cameras, the rude constant questioning. Kaede, who already had a fear of normal strangers confronted by the media...

Sakuta paled. "I feel sick…"

Mai gave a vicious final blow. "You'll feel a hundred times as sick if it actually happens."

Even though her words came out irritated, he didn't feel any unpleasantness coming from her. She seemed warm, even though she was angry, and Sakuta realized that it was probably because she was actually worried for him.

"Right, I get it, I'll be more careful." However, Sakuta began to think he might've done something he couldn't take back, and a chill ran down his back. "But the photo's already…"

Mai held her hand out again. "You should have her contact details, right?"

Sakuta immediately scrambled out the business card that Fumika had given him earlier and handed it to Mai. She looked at the front, then immediately turned it over.

"She hand wrote her number on the back. Disgusting." For some reason, she was condemning Sakuta.

"I do like older girls, but not that much older."

Still displeased, Mai began to punch the number on her phone "Hmm."

"Hey, Mai-san, what are you doing?"

"Be quiet!" She demanded, before putting the phone to her ear and turned her back on Sakuta. Almost immediately, Fumika picked up.

"I apologize for the sudden call. I'm Mai Sakurajima, you helped me at work before. This isn't a prank so please don't hang… Yes, _that_ Mai Sakurajima. It's been awhile. Is this a bad time, can we talk now?" Mai's calm tone on the phone made her sound strangely like a dependable adult and she moved the conversation on quickly. "You spoke with a Sakuta Azusagawa today and gave him your details. He's in the year below me. He-"

There was a long moment where Mai paused her explanation to listen to Fumika.

"Yes, it's about that. I'd like you to not publish that photo. If you could also refrain from asking specialists… Yes, of course, I wouldn't ask it of you for free, I'll give you a scoop in exchange."

"W-wait! Mai-san," he began in panic, thinking that she was about to offer herself instead.

Mai turned over her shoulder and put a finger to her lips like she was telling a child to be quiet.

"Yes, yes, I know. It's something you'll be interested in, I assure you." She turned her back on him again and continued. "I'll be coming back to show-business soon. I'll give you and your company exclusive rights… yes I know that wouldn't be enough, but I'm sure you'll agree when you hear this."

Mai then paused, almost for dramatic effect and spoke words that came out almost rehearsed to his ears. "I won't be returning to my mother's agency. I'll be returning through another."

Sakuta was probably more surprised than Fumika at that. Just the other moment, they had been fighting about this, and yet...

"I think, this offer is more than whatever you have on Azusagawa," Mai chanted, knowing she had Fumika on the ropes. "It also won't make people doubt your sanity, so I hope you'll consider…"

For awhile, there was a bit of squabbling on the phone, with Mai answering occasionally with short phrases like 'yes' and 'I understand' before ending with a resounding, "Then we have a deal. I look forward to work with you."

She had maintained her polite business-etiquette to the end, and Mai gave out a heavy sigh of relief after hanging up. She immediately turned to Sakuta.

"And that's that."

"Sorry."

"Why are you apologizing?"

Sakuta stumbled to correct himself. "O-oh right. I meant thank you."

"You're pretty cute when you're sad."

For once, he didn't have a single thing to come back with. The chill of being hounded by cameras was nowhere to be found and he was filled with a sense of security. Without a doubt, Mai was the one that had given him that.

Sakuta fumbled, "-but what you said… about you returning."

She was returning, and she had even said she would change agencies.

Mai looked up at the sky with a restrained pout.

"I thought you were right," she managed out, like she didn't want to admit it. "I enjoyed being on TV shows and being featured in movies. It's worth doing and it was fun. I always thought I'd like to carry on doing it. I couldn't help it. You were right, I was lying to myself."

So… Mai had changed her mind to go back to show business after all. And in fact, perhaps she come to him today with the intention of telling him.

Sakuta gave her a serious expression. "Hmm."

Mai looked back at him. "Th-this is where you forgive me."

"You say that after avoiding me for the past few weeks?"

"I just helped you, didn't I?"

"Those are two seperate things."

Even though she looked annoyed, she sighed and apologized, "Uuh.. I'm sorry for being stubborn."

"Once more."

"I regre-"

"With upturned eyes, and holding your hands together like you're-"

"Don't get carried away." Mai pinched his nose before letting down a laugh of relief. "Come on, let's go."

They resumed walking alongside each other, their steps lighter than before. All that remained was for Mai's determination to clear her Adolescence Syndrome…

Three minutes later, Mai stopped and said, "We're here."

They had stopped in front of the building Sakuta lived in.

"Eh?"

"Yeah, I live over here." Mai pointed to the building across the street. If Mai owned a place on this side of the building… it would be so close, they'd be able to greet each other from their respective windows.

"Thank you for paying and carrying my groceries." Mai smiled to him as she took the bags from. Unfortunately, it seems she really wouldn't invite him in. "Hey, Sakuta-kun?"

"Yes, my queen?"

"Let's hang out on Sunday." Her words felt strange as he had just called her a queen, but they warmed his insides anyway. "When I return to the screen, I'll be busy and won't have time to hang around. Even though I've lived here for two years, I've never been to Kamakura. Strange right? So I want to go at least once."

_Had she just ask him out?_

"Can you get work that easily?" he said instead.

Sakuta looked at her doubtfully, but she naturally just winked. "I am Mai Sakurajima, after all."

It was amazing that she didn't sound arrogant when she said that. It was somehow all the more refreshing. Despite his moment of doubt, it felt realistic. Once Mai committed, her schedule would fill up really fast..

"Ah, but Sunday…"

"Do you have something more important than my invitation?"

"I have a shift in the morning until lunch on weekends."

"Just switch with someone… well, I can't ask that of you." Mai squirmed. "Now I know you'll prioritize work over me, that's irritating."

"It's until two, so after that is fine," Sakuta said.

"Well, I guess that works." Mai nodded quietly.

He grinned.

Mai frowned. "Don't smile so much."

"You asked me on a date, how could I not?"

"It's not a date," she denied immediately.

"Eh?"

She tapped her foot against her other leg, and looked away as if distracted. "...Would a date be that good?"

"Of course," he energetically nodded.

"We'll do that, then."

"Yes!" He took a triumphant pose.

"I'll be waiting at the ticket gate to Enoshima, five past two."

"I did say I finished at two, didn't I?"

"That's why I said five past."

"Please, give me time. I might not get on time, as things could get busy and you won't want me in my sweaty uniform.

"Two-thirty then. If you're even a second late, I'll leave without you."

"Got it."

And thus, Sakuta had unexpectedly gained his first date ever. That night, a happy roar could be heard from the Azusagawa bathtub.

"Yahooo!"


	4. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** VCRx does not own Rascal Does Not Dream. Rights belong to Hajime Kamoshida and Aniplex! Thanks!

_One day, Sakuta Azusagawa notices a wild bunny girl at the local library. But it is not simply any bunny girl, she's a senpai from his school, that so happens to be an actress on hiatus. However, something's off: Nobody seems to be able to see or hear her. It is almost like she doesn't exist, and Sakuta will soon discover, it might become just that._

* * *

**Rascal Does Not Dream of:**

**A Beautiful Bunny Girl Senpai C3**

* * *

**May 25th**

That Sunday, despite the forecast foretelling otherwise, the skies were perfectly clear. It seemed the universe was on his side. It was warm out, yet accompanied by a slight spring breeze which cooled the land from the warmest rays of the sun; perfect for a date out to Kamakura with Mai.

Sakuta had managed to leave work at two o'clock on the dot and whisked himself home. It took him just under four minutes, flying through the streets on his bike.

"Welcome home!" Kaede greeted him. After giving her a warm hug, he went straight to the bathroom. He washed the sweat he'd accumulated from a long morning at work and took greater care than usual at shampooing his messy hair. He changed into his cleanest shirt and shorts, and even a brand new pair of underwear.

Kaede poked her head into his room with a puzzled gaze as he surveyed himself in the mirror. He hadn't told her the exact reason for his day out today, and she was probably wondering why he was suddenly taking good care in his appearance.

"A man has to be prepared for any and all situations!" Sakuta spoke with grandeur, imparting great wisdom. "I'm off, Kaede!"

"See you later, Onii-chan!" Kaede waved him off with Nasuno at her feet. He had checked the time just moments before leaving the door. It was twenty-two past, and he began a brisk jog to Fujisawa Station, careful not to over-exert himself after just showering.

As he marched to his date, his body felt somehow lighter, as if wanting to skip instead of walking normally. It had felt like he had grown wings.

It wasn't just the hop of his steps that felt different; the houses seemed brighter, and the last of the flowers had bloomed after a long spring. The sparrows on the powerlines chirped a happy melody, as if cheering him on.

However, three minutes after he left home, a cheerful and happy Sakuta's day was interrupted by a small girl's cry. Ahead of him, at the entrance to Fujisawa Park, was a little girl bawling her eyes out.

Sakuta walked up to her and crouched down to a knee. "Hey. Hey there. Are you okay there?"

The girl stopped crying at being spoke to and looked at Sakuta.

"Wahhh! You're not my Mama!" she yelled, before immediately resuming tearing by the bucket full.

"...Are you lost?" Sakuta asked, placing a hand on her shoulder in a comforting gesture.

"My Mama's gonnee!"

"Yup. You're lost."

She sniffled. "Mama's lost."

"Well, I guess that works too." Sakuta nodded with a smile. "Come on, stop crying. I'll help you look for her."

The little girl whimpered, but stopped crying. She looked up hesitantly. "Really?"

"Yea," Sakuta confirmed. He held his hand out, "Come on, let's go -"

Then, the instant that little girl had begun to reach out for his hand, there came a energetic yell behind him, "Drop dead, filthy pedophile!"

He wondered what the hell was happening, but before he could turn around, he felt a sharp pain attack his backside.

"Ooh!" he yelped out as as he landed in a sprawl on the asphalt. He turned to look at who had just kicked him and was met with a girl that was probably around his age.

She had a fluffy hair styled in a bob-cut, long teal blouse and short skirt which complimented her long bare legs. She wore light make-up, enough to be pretty, but not too much as to be zealous about it. She was the very picture of an everyday modern high school girl.

"Quickly! Run for it!" the student shouted at the girl. The little girl just made sounds of confusion at the sudden chain of events. "Come on, hurry!"

He didn't even know what was happening either, but the student grabbed the girl's hand and made a pull to take her away.

"Hurry, before the pedo gets up!"

"Who's the pedo?" Sakuta hoisted himself up while massaging his backside. The strength had vanished from his legs due to the exasperating pain.

"You!" the student accused vibrantly.

"You got it all wrong. I'm no pedo. I was helping her look for her mom!" Sakuta said, abashed.

"What?! Really?" The student looked down at the girl.

"He was helping," the student sniffled in confirmation.

"Eh?" The student cried out in embarrassment. "So he wasn't praying on you?"

"I'm not like that," Sakuta affirmed. "I like older women."

"So you're still a pervert?!" Even with the shock in her voice, the student's expression slightly eased.

"I was helping her look for her lost mother," Sakuta repeated from earlier.

"Wait, wait. She's the one that lost, right?"

"Mama's lost," the little girl told, moving away from the student to Sakuta's side and grabbing his sleeve tightly. It was a complete reversal.

The student gave a pained smile, realizing she was in the wrong.

"Man, my backside hurts," Sakuta complained.

"Sorry, ahaha," the student laughed guiltily.

"I think you split it in two…"

"Eh?! That's awful!" The student's face was filled with momentous horror, before turning to a bright angry red. "Wait, it's supposed to be split!"

Sakuta laughed jestingly. "Ahh, it hurts, it hurts."

"Fine! I get it," the student yelled, then immediately turned around and put her hands on a telephone pole. She thrust her skirt-clad bottom at Sakuta with an energetic yell, "Here!"

She probably meant him to kick her in retaliation, but he hadn't any interest to do such a thing. Especially out here in public.

"Hurry up. I have an appointment with my friends," the student complained.

Sakuta had an appointment too, an important one at that. Every second he hesitated: a second longer he was going to be late. And they also had a lost girl to help; he'll definitely be late now. At this point, kicking her would be quickest.

"Okay… Here then."

He lightly kicked her.

"Harder!" the student yelled over her shoulder.

"Huh?"

"Kick me as hard as I kicked you, so we'll be even. Come on," she told over her shoulder.

"Seriously? Umm, alright. You asked for it."

A girl was asking him to kick her hard in the backside. It would be the gentlemanly thing to oblige.

Sakuta pulled his head back, pivoting for extra strength and then steadied his aim. Then, he swung a serious kick at her bottom.

"Owwwwww!" she hollered.

"Hey, you there! What the hell are you doing?!" a voice called from behind them. Sakuta looked behind him to see a middle-aged policeman in his car: an expression of complete bewilderment on his face. "A park in broad daylight during a holiday isn't the place to be doing perverted activities like that!"

The officer got out of his car.

"No, she's the only pervert here." Sakuta pointed at the student.

"N-no! I'm not a pervert! There's a reason for -" the student frantically began.

"Let's hear it at the station," he grabbed them; his grip firm. Just by feeling it, he could tell he wouldn't be able to escape without some serious effort, which would only make things worse.

"I've got important things to do, let me go," Sakuta pleaded. The station would be the worst possible case. Mai would wait for five - maybe ten minutes. Fifteen would be a miracle. But she wouldn't wait any longer.

After all, she was Mai Sakurajima, a national celebrity.

"Right, right," the policeman grumbled. "Calm down and come quiet and we'll sort this out. You come along too, little miss. Your mother's waiting at the station."

"Mama? Yay!"

And so, Sakuta reluctantly was put into the back of a police vehicle along with the student and found himself with a new appointment at the police station.

The officer finally let them go an hour and a half after. The clock hands had swung dreadfully slow, nearing to the four o'clock mark.

After everything he'd done, his chances had been ruined.

"Geez, this is the worst," the girl voiced tiredly as she walked out of the station next to him.

"That's my line," Sakuta said with a pointed tone. "He had already understood our situation after five minutes, but you kept staring at your phone, which made him keep lecturing us."

"But I had text messages…" the girl defended. "If I don't reply quickly, they'll stop being my friends."

"Then I wouldn't exactly call them 'friends,' Koga," Sakuta told.

She shifted in surprise. "How do you know my name?!"

"Tomoe Koga," he recited her full name. They'd had to tell their names and show the police officer their IDs when he'd taken them in. They had also had to tell him which school they attended; coincidentally, she went to Minegahara too. Apparently, Tomoe had been too distracted with her phone to remember. "It's a cute name."

"Huh?! You know my full name, too?"

"I know everything about you."

"Hah, funny."

"You come from Fukuoka."

"What? How'd ya know?!"

"I'm a psychic," Sakuta said proudly. It wasn't the fact her ID had shown her place of birth.

"Psychic? Then why didn't you dodge earlier?"

"I'm that kind of psychic that can only see you once I hold your hand… Or kick your butt. That worked too."

"Don't go just saying it around!" she complained as she took out her phone. "Well then, tell me your name. It's only fair since you know mine."

Sakuta saw no reason to give her his real name. She'd had her chance to hear it earlier. He decided instead to give her an obvious pseudonym. "I'm Ichirou Satou!"

He thought it would be a name that anyone would realize was fake, but she seemed to readily accept it. It would be a bother to admit it was fake now, so Sakuta decided not to bother correcting her.

She kept staring at her phone.

"Are you always attached to that thing?" he asked her.

"You sound like my dad. I'm busy."

So she was one of those types.

He watched her for a minute as she scrambled to send out emails and texts and even liked a few videos without watching them. He'd seen this before. Frantically attached to the web and social media, living by those stupid rules and pictures and emoticons, needing to stay up-to-date on the latest media trends and such.

It was a exhaustful way to live - and pointless. He doubted she was placing a single semblance of thought into her actions or messages. She cruised across her apps with the efficiency of a machine.

It was a waste.

Yet, this life bounded so many people, connecting them into desperately needed cliques and groups to belong in, attached by vague short meetings of emails and texts and comments.

Then he saw the time in the corner of her phone and remembered his date with Mai.

"Ah, crap! I had plans. See you!" Tomoe shouted, saying the words that he had thought to say moments before he did. She rushed off, and so did he.

He was absolutely late.

He ran hard. He ran past Benny's and into Fujisawa Station and got through the ticket barriers.

Just past the barriers - that was where they had agreed to meet.

As he caught his breath, he scanned the station, looking all over.

Unfortunately, Mai wasn't anywhere in sight.

Regret encroached upon him. He couldn't have just done nothing when he saw that lost girl, but nevertheless, he'd lost his first date. In that moment, he hated himself for not having a phone. If he had, he could've called her and explained.

"Well, I've really done it…" Sakuta groaned to himself. Mai wouldn't have waited for an hour and a half for him. She would now never forgive him. She was probably already in Kamakura and angry at Sakuta for not showing up. "I'm the worst."

"You really are - having the nerve to keep me waiting an hour and thirty-eight minutes."

He turned in disbelief, and behind him, there was Mai, standing defiantly in casual spring clothes. "...You're-"

"What?" she barked, eyes blazing.

Sakuta shifted to an accusing stance. "It's just that Mai-san isn't a lovable girl that would admirably wait for a man running late. You must be an imposter!" Sakuta exclaimed in an exaggerated tone.

Mai narrowed her eyes and suddenly the air around him felt a bit colder.

"So that's how Sakuta sees me?" Mai murmured thoughtfully.

"You forgot the '-kun'," Sakuta said.

"Sakuta barely deserves 'Sakuta,'" as Mai was saying that, Sakuta couldn't help but smile. Even after an hour and a half, she had waited for him when she had told she wouldn't stand a second. "What are you smirking on about?"

"Nothing at all."

He fought to suppress his smile as he looked at Mai again. It was actually the first time he'd seen her in casual clothes. Before, he'd only seen her in the Minegahara uniform and, of course, the Bunny Girl suit. Now, she was wearing a violet knitted hoodie atop a long-sleeve blouse. Her skirt was knee-length, with long black tights that stretched down her legs and fashionable spring boots that came up to just under her knees. Her outfit was somehow balanced elegance and homely perfectly.

It suited Mai very well.

However, there was one thing…

"Something wrong?" Mai frowned.

"A date requires bare legs, Mai-san," Sakuta informed her knowingly, crouching down and analyzing her tights. She was always wearing tights around her legs.

"You have some nerve don't you?" she muttered, swatting him on the head.

"Ehh, I guess I can make do. You do look really cute."

Mai gave him a silent, sidelong look.

Sakuta sighed happily. "You're way too cute, Mai-san."

"It's good to be honest with me."

"My heart's racing. I want to take you home and bring you -"

"If you are about to say anything I'll disapprove off, I recommend you don't say it."

Sakuta smiled. He gestured in the direction of the South Platform. "Shall we go then?"

"There's no reason to rush; the next train doesn't come here for another 25 minutes. Besides, this conversation isn't over. You still haven't given me your excuse for being late and sincerely beg for my forgiveness." It seemed Mai was enjoying herself now. Her eyes were sparkling with life. "If it's not good enough, I'll go home."

Maybe she had waited an hour and thirty-eight minutes just to tease him.

"Well, I was on my way, when at Fujisawa Park when I found a lost child-"

"I'm going home."

"Wait! It's the truth!"

"Why were you by the park?" she asked.

"It's on the way from home. I had went to shower and change underwear, in case tonight..."

Mai sighed in disgust. "Well, that does sound like the worthless effort of a younger boy… so I'll have to accept it."

"Thank you very much, senpai!" Sakuta bowed with great appreciation.

Mai huffed. "However, when we get to Kamakura, you're not allowed to be closer than thirty meters from me."

At that point, it wouldn't be a date. He'd be more of a stalker.

"B-but I was late because I had to take her to the police station," Sakuta begged. He didn't want to get arrested again.

"The lost child was a girl?"

He silently nodded. "She was."

"You have some nerve to keep me waiting for another girl."

"Even though she was only six?!"

He hadn't gotten the little girl's exact age, but six was a good estimate.

"Quite so," she affirmed, to his dismay. "Besides, the station is just over there, isn't it?"

Mai pointed past the entrance of the station.

"She asked me to stay with her until they found her parents. She would start to cry, when I would try leave beforehand." With each word, he dug himself deeper into a pit.

"Hmm." Mai's doubtful gaze stabbed him through the eyes. "You should know, I hate lies."

"What a coincidence, so do I. We have lots in common."

"If you're lying, I'll make you eat Pocky through your nose."

"One stick?!"

"A box."

"Then… can I at least choose strawberry if-"

"Chocolate," Mai decreed sternly. But after a moment of consideration, her eyes slightly softened. "Well, okay, I'm not saying I forgive you, but we can still go on a date."

"Thank you!"

He was about to rejoice when he heard a familiar voice call out, "Ah! The pervert from earlier!"

He looked to the direction of the shout and saw Tomoe Koga from earlier. She was with three other girls - presumably the same ones she'd had plans with. They all looked to be similar in ages, all probably in the same class.

"Ah, the Hakata from earlier!" he called back.

Tomoe sprung forward from the group, her hand forward and tried covering his mouth. "Don't say that!"

"Say what?"

"What you just said. What did you call me?"

"Uh, you were from Fukuoka, right?"

Just then, one of Tomoe's friends grabbed her by the arm and pulled her away from Sakuta.

"What are you doing?!" the girl who pulled at Tomoe yelled at her.

Tomoe was visibly confused. "Huh?"

"That's _hospital incident_," her friend attempted to whisper, eyes pointing in the direction of Sakuta. She had 'attempted' a whisper, meaning cupping her hands around and saying it into Tomoe's ear. However, she seemed to forget the 'lowering of the voice' portion.

"Eh?" Tomoe muttered in surprise. "That's Satou Ichirou."

"Just don't get close to him. Anyway, look who's he's with." They were still 'whispering' to one another.

Were they that ignorant about how loud they were speaking, or did they simply not care?

However, Sakuta then noticed the gathered girls were staring at Mai. Apparently, they could see her.

"Come on, let's go," one of the other girls said, and the group began to walk away rudely in the direction of another platform. However, Tomoe did wave apologetically as they went around a bend.

As he watched them leave his sight, Sakuta realized his mistake. He'd instinctively answered Tomoe. Mai would then figure…

He glanced at Mai. She wore a perfectly blank expression.

"Hey Sakuta," she began.

"It's not what you think."

"What that girl said…"

"Sort of."

Mai blinked.

"Don't worry, I'm not going home." She latched her arm around his. "At least not yet! First, we need to buy some Pocky!"

"...Can we get the thin ones?"

"Course not."

And thus, his first date had begun, and it would involve purchasing his own method of torture.

Fifteen minutes later, an abrupt snap could be heard as Mai bit into a stick of pocky. Each of her bites produce a distinct, loud crunch. She was making sure Sakuta could see how annoyed she was.

He was sitting next to her on the Enoden train, their seats facing the sea.

He couldn't enjoy the scene well, however. He had just finished explaining in full scope and detail the truth for his delayed arrival, and now she was considering his couldn't help but anxiously try to anticipate the timing of the inevitable stab of a pocky into his nose.

And she'd gotten the big ones too.

They sat silently there for a few moments, sitting beside each other; Mai stiffly biting into each pocky one by one. And then, the time came when Mai held out a stick of pocky and said, "Here. Take it."

Sakuta hesitantly looked down at her outstretched hand.

"Umm, I'm full," he answered slowly.

"I don't want to get fat, so help me finish," Mai explained, rolling her eyes.

Sakuta sighed. "Okay."

He reluctantly took the offered chocolate-creme-covered stick.

Mai glanced at him with a slight grin. "You can eat them normally."

Relief filled his soul. "Thank you."

He bit into the pocky with gusto. He'd actually hadn't eaten much all day except a quick sandwich during break before lunch rush.

"Did you really think I'd make you eat them with your nose?" Mai asked. Noticing his enthusiasm, she handed him the box.

Sakuta chewed. Somehow, he had a feeling Mai was the type to find talking while eating rude. Only after he swallowed, he said, "You were very serious when you were telling me to earlier."

"It's called acting, idiot."

"You had me fooled."

"I'm an actress. I'd be worried if you hadn't."

"True."

Mai turned her tired gaze to the window. "You know, this just means I'm going to have you repent some other way."

"I'm sorry I was lying. Great and Beautiful Sakurajima-sama, please forgive me."

Mai didn't respond for a while. She just sat there and stared out at the passing streets and buildings. Sakuta sensed she was in deep thought and decided to refrain from interrupting.

They had passed by several stations and hundreds of houses - Sakuta even finished the rest of the pocky - before Mai's eyes shifted back into the train carriage.

"Hey," her voice cracked. "Why do you look out for me so much?"

He turned in honest confusion. "What's bringing this up?"

"Normal people wouldn't go out of their way to look after troublesome girls like me."

Sakuta couldn't help but narrow his eyebrows in consideration. "It's because of that twisted personality that you don't have any friends."

"How does that relate to-"

"Mai-san, do you enjoy school?" Sakuta interrupted.

Mai huffed and looked away. "What? You mean, do I enjoy school _despite_ having no friends? Well… that's been the case since elementary school, so it's never bothered me that much," she explained with a diminished tone. "Anyway, don't change the subject. I asked you a question. Answer it."

Sakuta knew Mai was a spectacular actress, but right in that moment, he sensed her words to be true ones.

Perhaps she'd never had any friends her age growing up. She didn't feel as much unease with not having anyone as expected, as she'd never held the sensation in the first place.

One couldn't miss something they'd never had.

"What was the question again?" Sakuta feigned.

She glared at him sharply. "Why do you insist so strongly on interfering in my life? You go as far as giving yourself up to that journalist for information on me, and all those weeks you searched for me at school... You must have a reason."

"Maybe I'm just the type not able to leave someone when they need help."

Mai's eyes ignited. "Give me a serious answer."

"It was a serious answer."

"That wasn't it. You're soft-hearted, but not by nature. What drives you? Why are you meddling in my affairs?"

"What the hell does 'soft-hearted, but not by nature' even mean?!"

"Just answer the question!" she silently yelled at him. It wasn't the volume of her voice, but the tone and glare of her eyes that conveyed her intent.

Sakuta looked right back at her. With his most serious expression, he boasted, "I was just enthusiastic for a chance to get close to a beautiful senpai."

"Who taught you to speak so candidly?"

Sakuta didn't know whether to take it as an insult. "Weren't you the one who told me to be serious?"

"Tell me your real reason," Mai scowled.

Sakuta sighed and slowly looked down at his feet. "Because it's the worst when you're in trouble and you don't have someone to rely on."

Sakuta paused, his eyes trained on his sneakers, while he waited for Mai to respond.

When she remained silent, he continued, "When Kaede had her outbreak of Adolescence Syndrome, nobody believed us. My friends would listen, but they'd roll their eyes and laugh. They thought I was..."

"Can I ask you something?" Mai's voice interrupted. Sakuta nodded, without looking at her. "What about your parents?"

Her voice was soft, yet steady, like how one would poke a sleeping bear. After all, she also had an indecent relationship with her mother, so she knew what resentful emotions could be spurred by such a question. He did unintentionally cause her own upwelling of suppressed emotions weeks earlier.

"We live separately now."

"I know that. I noticed when I was at your apartment that day." He guessed that would remove the need for an explanation. It was the same attentiveness that he remembered from when she had memorized his name when they had first met. She had probably noticed the only shoes in the entryway to be his, and the atmosphere of his place to be void of the touch of an adult. "Did they?.."

"They wouldn't believe me. Even when I had recorded her scars appearing before me, my parents screamed at me for faking it and editing the footage," Sakuta divulged. He clenched his fists. "...They called me a liar."

For whatever coincidences or mechanics, Kaede would never get cuts while their parents were around. It had frustrated him for weeks, before he had came up with that solution - only to make things worse.

But even as his fists were on the edge of punching something, Sakuta couldn't blame them. Even now at the verge of tearful frustration, he knew they couldn't help it. They couldn't; how could they? Sakuta might've not even believed it either, if he hadn't seen it himself.

Mai was just silent. She must've not been sure how to respond properly.

He continued, "Eventually, Kaede's symptoms got worse… My mom, well, there was so much already going on. Something happened, and she couldn't handle it anymore. She broke. Her mind refused to believe what her daughter was going through. She got admitted into a mental hospital soon after. Dad looks after her now."

And after all these years, Sakuta still didn't know what to make of his situation. He didn't know how he should feel about it.

Should he feel angry? Should he despise his life? If he did, who would he blame it on? His parents? His sister? The universe? Himself?

Or should he feel regret? Depressed? Something else, or all of the above?

He wasn't sure what to think. The only thing he was sure was that this was his life.

"I-Is that why Kaede?..."

He nodded. "After being rejected by mom, I guess Kaede just shut herself from the world. She blamed herself and…"

"How old was she again?"

"Kaede?" Sakuta asked in clarification, to which Mai hummed in agreement. "Two years younger than me. At the time, she was in her first year of middle school."

"Do you… do you resent your mother?"

"Of course, I did," Sakuta answered bluntly. "Parents are suppose to help their kids. They were supposed to be the ones that believe and help. Not think we're…"

But Sakuta had learned a lot since he and Kaede had moved out: things that would've been impossible otherwise. For example, everyday, his mother had cooked for them, done the laundry, cleaned the house and toilet and such. When they had lived together, she'd taken care of all those responsibilities.

They were things that Sakuta had thought only to be natural beforehand, but now living apart, he had realized how much his mother had done for them.

Now, Sakuta was the one who cooked. He was the one who did the laundry, and cleaned whenever Kaede made a mess. Each day onward, he held a greater appreciation for those days of his childhood - greater appreciation for his mother.

His mother had simple endured things for her family and never showed a moment of demand to be noticed for it.

She'd never asked to be thanked.

So when he thought upon how he never truly thanked her during those days, his resentment felt misplaced.

No, they _was_ misplaced.

He felt the same to his father, who now worked long hours to afford his mother's stacking medical bills, and two sets of apartments, yet still balanced taking care of his mother and monthly checking up on Sakuta and Kaede.

Even if Sakuta worked as much as he could, he knew, in reality, he couldn't sustain that. He'd barely afford the rent of his own place. He had to admit it. He couldn't…

"What happened to Kaede," Sakuta tiredly started, his breathing easing, "made me realize I'm still a kid, and that even adults can't be expected to solve everything. Of course, they can't."

His parents had done their best, he knew. They hadn't believed him when he needed them the most, but they had done everything else, and he didn't have the right to discount that.

Mai raised an eyebrow. "That's amazing."

He looked at her. "Great. Now you think I'm an idiot."

"That's not what I'm doing. Most of your classmates probably don't realize that yet, right? That makes you mature for your age."

Sakuta shrugged. "They just haven't needed to. Anyone would've realized that, put into my situation."

Mai gave him a long silent look. "No - no they wouldn't."

Sakuta sat in silence.

"So, back to the question, why do you care about me?"

Right. This was how their conversation started.

"I was alone," Sakuta began again. "It was after I'd gotten those scars on my chest. The doctors were prescribing me medicine for my head, and well, my parents had already thought I was faking Kaede's scars… One day, while I was still being treated for my scars, I ran away…"

_Sakuta gazed silently at the slow lapping of the waves of Shichirigahama Beach. He'd needed to just get away from all of it. Get away from all of them and their looks. The pitying look of all the medical people; the anxious glances of his parents._

_The medication the doctors had prescribed him was giving him headaches. Adding it with all the silent whispering about him and the generally sick and depressing sounds of a hospital… it'd driven him mad._

_So he left to somewhere that would just not be there. He'd wandered town wordlessly for hours without direction, before finding himself here. There was always something soothing about the sea: the sea was a sanctuary, an escape from the world._

_The gulls abroad squawked at one another playfully, and the sea's salty breeze blew gently, caressing his ears. The constant lapping of the soft waves eased his mind from the sounds of the modern world and, as they did, the cool sensation of soaked sand reached his toes._

"_Did you know? The distance between your eyes and the horizon afar is about four kilometers," a sweet voice blurted from right behind him._

_The voice had shaken him violently from his moment of solitude. He hadn't heard anyone walk up. _

_Yet, when he turned his gaze over his shoulder, there was a girl. She looked about sixteen - two years older than him. She wore a brown vest with a white dress blouse and a red tie - evidently part of a school uniform - and a short, black mini-skirt which fluttered in the summer breeze. She had stunning blue eyes that seemed like miniature portraits of the sky and long braided indigo hair which felled down to the middle of her back._

_She gave him a cheerful smile with a sort of knowing glance, like she had just shared an inside joke to a friend. "Hello, my name is Shoko Makinohara. Makinohara spelled like Makinohara Rest Area, and Shoko like 'child soaring through the skies.' What's your name, young man?"_

"During that critical moment - when I thought that I had no one - I met them," Sakuta confessed, thinking on moment he had met his savior, "- and they lended me their ear. If I hadn't meet them, I don't know where I would be today."

There were worse things than being alone.

Having no one was worst.

He was sure that everyone knew that, subconsciously. It was why everyone flocked into cliques and made friends. It was out of desperation, to at least have someone, even if the connection was nothing more than that.

"That someone believed me," Sakuta finished. "And so, when I saw you, I was - I was hoping I could be to you what they were to me."

Just thinking about her made his heart ache. Just her name in general - being on the tip of his tongue made - him feel a variety of feelings he wasn't sure how to handle. And so, he simply bit it down.

"It was a woman, wasn't it," Mai stated, startling Sakuta. She had said it so bluntly.

"Huh?"

"I can see it in your eyes." The train slowed to a halt at Shichirigahama Station, and the instant the doors opened, Mai suddenly stood. "I'm getting off."

Their plans had been at the next stop: Kamakura Station. He called out to tell her, but Mai was already walking off.

He hurriedly followed.

"It's already evening, because you were so late," Mai grumbled as he caught up to her. "It's a little walk, but I have to meet someone on the beach."

"Heh? What?"

"You can come along. We'll head on to Kamakura afterward. It shouldn't take too long." She pointed to the sea and continued her brisk pace. As they were practically marching toward the beach, Mai blurted out of nowhere, "Did you know, even though Shichirigahama begins with 'seven ri,' it's not that long?"

Sakuta nodded. "Seven ri would be 28 kilometers, but the beach is barely three."

"You know some boring facts," Mai muttered blandly, over her shoulder. Apparently, she had meant to tease him with a fact, only for his extent of useless knowledge to foil her plans.

"Weren't you the one to bring up the topic?" Sakuta defended.

"So, what kind of person were they?"

"Hm?"

"The fabled girl who believed your stories."

"Oh, her. You're curious?"

"I was just wondering what her name was."

"That's the definition of curious, Mai-san."

"Just tell me."

"Shoko Makinohara," Sakuta answered, matter of factly. "We met when I was in my last year of middle school, her a sophomore in high school. She always wore her Minegahara uniform."

At that point, Mai finally looked at him. "Is she the reason you came to Minegahara High?"

Sakuta chuckled, caught. There was no denying it now. "You got me there. Things were tough back at home after what Kaede and I had went through, so it was arranged for us to move somewhere the gossip would have a harder time following us. My father let me choose, and well, I didn't really have any idea where I would've liked, so I looked up where Minegahara was…"

"But she rejected you?" Mai interrupted as the concrete sidewalk shifted into the sands of Shichirigahama Beach. Was the universe really trying to play with him, bringing him back to where he and Shoko had met?

"No, actually, I haven't had the chance. I couldn't find her."

"Huh? Did she transfer?"

"I spoke to all the people in her grade. They never knew anyone by the name Shoko Makinohara. I even looked through all the old yearbooks and alumni rosters they had in storage. She wasn't there. No Shoko Makinohara ever attended Minegahara High."

Mai stopped in her tracks and looked at him in complete disbelief.

Sakuta stared in the direction of the sun above. "I don't know what I should do about it, but I'm positive I met someone named Shoko Makinohara, and that their actions saved me."

"Right."

"And as such, there was no way I was able to repay the favor for what she did for me. So, when I saw you, I thought I'd try and spread the good that was given to me." Adolescence Syndrome wasn't something that could be combated and solved alone. One needed someone to believe them and confide with. It would be that presence that would save or destroy someone. "...And there's something else."

Mai raised an eyebrow. "Something else?"

"When I had told her my story, she believed me on the whim," Sakuta confided. "Somehow, I don't think she was just listen out of pity, or that she was simply gullible… I think she believed me because she knows about Adolescence Syndrome. That's why I have to find her. I want to know what she knew."

Sakuta's hand drifted toward his chest. There was still that fact that, while Kaede's scars had healed, his still existed.

They could be a sign his troubles weren't yet over.

"Are you worried about your scars?" Mai asked, voicing his anxious thoughts.

"I guess so," he downplayed. He was really worried. He tried to not to think about it too often, but it was always there: three large, gruesomely deep scars that stretched forever across his chest. "They're especially depressing during summers. I can't be around shirtless when I go swimming at the beach or when I'm just really hot."

"I see."

"And there's also Kaede."

Kaede spent every day inside, hiding away, reading and playing with Nasuno. It was a fine lifestyle, but also a depressing one at that. He wanted to bring her to the park, or walk along the beach, or bring her to see a movie at the theater.

He didn't want her to waste away, forever hiding in the apartment.

Thus, he wanted to learn more about Adolescence Syndrome. He wanted to know how it worked and how - if possible - to cure it.

That was another reason he had been interested in Mai: to see a new case...

"Hey," Mai said. "Do you love her?"

Mai's tone inferred she was asking about Shoko.

_Did he love her?_

Before, whenever he had thought of Shoko, his chest would tighten and he'd sweat if he thought of her name more than once, like a dizzying madness. But now - now that he was here, with Mai, he felt different.

He felt a lot more… grounded.

"I was totally in love with her," Sakuta admitted, rubbing his hand on the back of his neck in embarrassment.

And with that final admittance, his chest lifted with all the remaining angst it had held for two whole years.

Mai scowled, with clenched fists. "You're horrible, admitting you love another woman while on a date."

"Even though you were the one who asked?" Sakuta barked. "Besides, I said 'was.' Was! That's important!"

She didn't look like she agreed at all, but before she could reply, an alarm rang on her phone, and she took it out.

"It's almost time."

"Huh?"

Mai showed her phone to Sakuta. It took him a moment, but he then realized she had meant him to read what was on there.

It was an email.

[To MANAGER:]

[On May, 25th, come to Shichirigahama Beach. 5 PM.]

It was an email sent to Mai's mother.

May 25th was today's date and right now was 4:57.

"Wait, you're meeting her, _now?"_

Mai crossed her arms. "It's not that I want to."

"Then don't." But even as he said those words, he knew she had to. Mai's mother was her former manager, and if she was to return back onto the screen with another agency, they would've needed to confront one another sooner or later. "...Are there still things to deal with in your contract?"

Mai shook her head. "I got out of it the same time I went on hiatus, so that's finished with."

So the meeting would only be one of formality. Mai was already free to sign herself to another company. Perhaps she was looking for an apology of sorts or to boast by face that she was returning.

"Well, just don't-"

"It's okay," Mai eased. "I've decided to this. Besides, she's already here."

Mai motioned her head towards the direction they'd came.

There, a silhouette had entered the beach. She was still too far to see, but Sakuta could make out a head of long, black hair similar to Mai's.

"Maybe I should greet her too," Sakuta thought out loud.

"You're not." Mai gave him an annoyed look. "We'll continue our date when I'm done, so wait back a bit."

He raised his hands in defeat.

"Fine."

He distanced himself from her, while she went to approach her mother.

Mai's mother was getting closer now as well, enough that Sakuta could make out her features. Mrs. Sakurajima was tall and slender and didn't look the age of someone with a daughter in her third year of high school. She was in fact a beauty herself and looked very similar to Mai - or it'd be better to say that Mai looked very much like her mother. They wore their hair down the same way and had a defiant way of walking, as if expecting to take on the entire world on a moment's notice.

She wore a dark suit which reinforced her business-ready posture, and she had a strange aura of coldness to her, similar to the one that Mai often gave out when she glared at him.

Mai's mother was approaching closer with each step. The distance between the two Sakurajima women shrunk twice as quick, with Mai was approaching her as well.

But then, Sakuta noticed something off about Mai's mother's expression. Or rather, it was her eyes. Her mother looked to be scanning the beach, looking left then right, as if looking for someone.

It seemed weird to him. Was she expecting someone else to accompany Mai?

His thoughts became unnecessary when Mrs. Sakurajima's eyes wide in surprise, looking in their direction. And when they were just a few yards apart, Mai's steps reached a slow halt, easing into the sand.

But, her mother continued to approach.

Mrs. Sakurajima's eyes were forward, like the space in front of her was bare. Mai began to speak, but her mother continued to walk…

Right. Past. Her.

Their shoulders had missed by a mere inch.

She kept walking, as if she hadn't seen Mai.

Mai turned around in shock.

Sakuta's feet suddenly glued him to the earth. Mai's mother was now looking straight at him.

"You've got to be kidding," Sakuta let out, his voice hopefully lost in the wind.

Mrs Sakurajima stopped just short of where he stood.

"Was it you?" Mai's mother's voice was like a mirror in the way Mai spoke, and Sakuta was taken aback. "Why did you tell me to come here? Who are you? What do you want?"

Mrs. Sakurajima continued the barrage of questions, none he was ready for.

"I'm Sakuta Azusagawa," he introduced himself hesitantly. He shifted his weight and did his best to hold a confident expression. After all, he was meeting Mai's mother. "I'm a high schooler at Minegahara High."

"I see. Well, what do you want Sakuta? I'm a busy person."

"Well, actually, it wasn't me who asked you here. You see, I'm a kouhai of Mai-san's," he clarified.

Mai's mother's eyes furrowed with unease. "A kouhai of...?"

He could feel Mai's gaze from behind her mother.

"Mai-san," he repeated.

Mrs. Sakurajima blinked. "Did she?"

"Yes," Sakuta nodded.

Mai's mother stood there for a moment, unreacting, before her expression changed to one of suppressed confusion. "Who is that?"

Mai's eyes grew in shock.

Her mother had just asked who she was.

"I'm talking about your daughter!" he fumed.

Mai's mother stared back at him with assessment. "What are you talking about? I don't have a daughter. Quit joking."

She'd said those words so easily.

She didn't have a daughter.

She didn't have…

"Who's the one joking here?" he fired back. "Because it's not me!"

How could she say that? Why was she saying that...

Mai's mother stepped back for a moment, before seemingly biting down on her lip with irritance. "I see now. Is this some ploy for a private audition? Did you plan to be part of my agency?"

She was seeing things all wrong. How could she say she didn't have a daughter?

They'd been separated for two years, but pretending she never had one would be a cruel joke.

Yet, Sakuta realized, Mai's mother didn't seem to be the type to joke around. In fact, she was quite the opposite. She was the kind to criticize jokes.

Her expression spelled out complete seriousness.

Her earlier questions had been all genuine. She didn't know who 'Mai' was.

She didn't know she had a daughter - which was impossible.

"Wait," he exclaimed, a light of an idea springing into his head. "The email! Mai-san sent you a message saying she would meet you here, right?"

"You mean this one?"

She pulled out her phone, and on the screen was the exact same email Mai had shown him, only this time from the receiving side.

[From MAI:]

[On May, 25th, come to Shichirigahama Beach. 5 PM.]

Mai's name was right there! Right in the heading!

However, Mai's mother only scowled softly at the message. "I can't figure out who the sender is."

Sakuta began to look to argue, but then he saw the look in her eyes: cluelessness. And then the reflection on her pupils:

A mirror image of her phone in her eyes showed the email… With a blank space for a sender.

Mrs. Sakurajima suddenly began blinking tiredly, like she had just woken from a dream. "Strange... I remember placing this on my calendar and even going out of my way to clear my schedule for this appointment… But what is this all about?"

Sakuta wanted to ask the same thing. For him, 'Mai' was written clearly, light as day, yet...

It was impossible. Somehow, Mai's mother couldn't see her daughter's name on the screen, much less her daughter.

His gaze continued to switch from the phone and Mrs. Sakurajima's face.

He looked at the timestamp of the message. It was three days ago. Which meant three days ago, her mother knew her enough to put through the effort of coming here…

But some point in between, Mai's mother had forgotten her.

It wasn't simply that she couldn't see her.

Mai's mother didn't remember her, as if Mai had never existed!

He lost control.

"This is absurd!" he burst uselessly at the woman in front of him. "You're her mother! How could you forget her!"

Mai's mother seemed in that moment to shake from her dreamful reverie and narrowed her eyes at Sakuta in annoyance. "I'll admit, this is an interesting sales-pitch, but it's a bit outlandish. You have some potential on the emotions aspect, but your lines are complete rubbish. Study a bit more, and try again - preferably with someone else? I don't want to see you in my sight again."

Mai's mother turned on her heel and began walking away.

She had her back towards him like that was it and was now leaving…

He couldn't help himself.

"You're her mother!" he screamed.

She didn't even flinch. Mai's mother's steps were beyond smooth on the sand. She was ignoring him, now. She was still leaving.

"How could you forget your daughter?!"

"...That's enough," Mai's voice broke out beside him.

He had forgotten she was here.

"What? No, your mother-"

"That's... enough," Mai croaked.

"No. It's not enough." Sakuta looked again in the direction of Mrs. Sakurajima. Putting in every morsel of his being, he screamed on the top of his lungs, "We're not done talking!"

"Please… stop…"

His mind froze as Mai collapsed onto his shoulder, trembling with tears. He was hurting her with each scream, and suddenly, the red-hot flames in his head extinguished.

He held her, as she held onto him, crying into his shoulder.

"I'm sorry - I'm really…"

"It's… It's fine," she coughed through her sobbing. "It's…"

But it wasn't. It wasn't fine.

Mai's mother hadn't just not see her. She had fully believed she didn't have a daughter.

What was happening to Mai?

Sakuta had thought Mai was simply becoming inaudible and invisible to people. He was sure that Mai had thought the same too.

But suddenly, they faced a new reality that something much worse was occuring.

"Sakuta?" Mai's voiced pleadingly, reflecting the same doubt he had.

Sakuta and Mai might know anything at all. They had both assumed that people simply weren't noticing her. But if it was not just being seen or heard, but their memories of her vanishing as well…

He felt even more uneasy than ever before and it didn't take long for them to confirm it.

Without even discussing it, Sakuta and Mai made their way back to Shichirigahama Station and boarded on the first train bound for home. At the station and then on the train, Sakuta spoke to dozens of commuters and workers - anyone who would give him a moment - about if they knew about 'Mai Sakurajima.'

"I don't know her." "Who?" "Should I know that name?" "Sakurajima… Was there an actress by that name?"

Nobody he asked seemed to know anything about who 'Mai Sakurajima' was.

It felt too soon, when their train arrived back at Fujisawa Station. The ride back had been one of silent agony.

But not all hope was lost yet. There was possibly one last person he could think of that would know Mai Sakurajima. While Mai went to use the station restroom, Sakuta slowly pulled out from his wallet a business card that he'd meant to toss two nights ago.

He found his way into an unoccupied phone booth, and stared windedly at the handwritten number on the card's back. With heavy hands, he punched each number one-by-one.

It took several rings. A dozen. He realized it was Sunday, and perhaps she wasn't in the office, but then, when he was about to give up, the phone clicked.

"Hello?" Fumika's voice came from the phone.

"It's Sakuta Azusagawa," he greeted.

"Oh Mai-"

His blood stilled. He'd...

Fumika continued, "-to think, I'd get a call from you! This must be quite an occasion."

"Wait," Sakuta exulted, "Do you remember who Mai is?!"

"Hmm?"

"Mai. Mai Sakurajima. It's why I called," Sakuta hastedly explained.

"Who?"

The world crashed down on him. He didn't know how long he was silent on the phone.

"Hello? Sakuta-kun?" Fumika's voice called over the phone.

He tried to keep his voice steady. "Y-you don't know any-nyone named Mai Sakurajima?"

"No. Should I?"

"But you just said Mai…"

Fumika answered with confusion, "Huh? You mean, 'oh my?' The expression?"

She hadn't said Mai. She'd said 'my.' She didn't know who Mai was.

"Then… what about my picture?"

The pictures of the scars on his chest; Fumika had to still have had that, and it had been Mai who had gotten her to promise not to publish it. If he could remind her of that…

"I promise I wouldn't publish that, right? Don't worry, I won't," Fumika responded

"Who did you promise to?!"

"I promised to you, didn't I?" she said simply. "Is something wrong? Sak-"

He hung up.

He placed the receiver down, and when he turned around, Mai was there, waiting.

By the look on her face, she'd heard the whole conversation.

"I see," she drawled dully, her arms crossed, hands on her shoulders. "Welp, thank you for today. Good night."

She started to part in the direction of home.

Her head dipped with defeated. She was giving up. No one knew who she was.

"Mai-san, wait!" Sakuta grabbed her wrist, and even though Mai stopped, she didn't turn around.

Mai raised her face just enough to acknowledge him. "What?"

"There might still be someone somewhere that will see and remember you."

"I doubt it. It's pretty clear only you can…"

Mai seemed to already accept that the world was beyond her reach. She had accepted it too easily. What was wrong with her?

He couldn't accept it. He couldn't. He didn't know what to do, if there was anything he could do… but he still wanted to believe. Somewhere, in some distant town, or across the ocean, there'd be more who could still know and see her.

"Let's go check. If we go to a faraway place, someone's bound to remember you!"

He barely believed the words himself. He had no reason to.

Yet, he had no choice. He had to.

"It'll be pointless. We'll only find out that no one else can see or even remember me! What will we do then? What?!" Mai screamed at him. She started to push off his hand, but it was weak as she was trembling.

"At the very least," Sakuta held her hand firmly, "I can be at your side the whole way we go."

Her hand stopped pushing him away. Her shoulders slackened.

"Mai-san," Sakuta eased. "I want to be with you the entire way. Please, let me."

Mai remained silent, but she didn't start pushing him away again.

"Please."

"How cheeky," Mai murmured, her voice coarse and beyond exhausted. It had been a long day, "-for someone younger than me..."

"We're on a date, after all," Sakuta said kindly.

Mai turned and stared sadly at him with her damp lavender eyes...

She cast them down.

"Very well," Mai whispered. "If you're saying you insist not taking me home yet, I'll continue this date with you."

Sakuta took her arm, and held her.

"Then let's. Come on."

They weren't thinking about where they were going. They simply took the first train out from Fujisawa Station.

It ended up being the Tokaido line - which took them west along the southern coast. It took them through Kanagawa, Atami, and Shizuoka. At each station, new late-evening travelers would board, and each time, Sakuta would try to ask as many as possible if they knew about Mai Sakurajima.

But nothing changed.

Nobody saw her.

Nobody knew her.

Mai would just watch uselessly, as each new test only confirmed her beliefs. She was gone from the world.

The evening soon shifted to night as he and Mai continued west. It became apparent he would not be home that night, and so, he borrowed Mai's cell to call home.

"Please leave your message after the tone. Beep!" the automated answer machine told him.

"Kaede, it's me," he spoke. Every call with her started like this. Kaede never answered the phone to anyone but him. Not even their father.

It took not even a second for her to pick up. "Hello, hello? This is Kaede. What's wrong?"

"Sorry, I'm won't be coming home today."

"Eh?" Kaede yelped.

"I have a far away errand to run," Sakuta explained.

"What errand is that?!"

For a moment, Sakuta was unsure how to answer. He didn't want to worry his sister, yet he also vowed never to lie to her. "Do you remember that girl that came to our place awhile ago, Mai Sakurajima?"

"Umm? No, Kaede doesn't know her," she told him.

He laughed sadly. Of course she didn't. "It's fine that you don't. Bear with me. Can you cook yourself some instant noodles from the covers? Choose any flavor you want. While you're at it, make sure you feed Nasuno and shower and brush your teeth before you go to bed."

It was clear Kaede had only been half listening when she cried in jealousy. "Who's this Mai?"

Sakuta chuckled. "Oh, and you can have an extra pudding tonight too."

"Ah, really?!"

And just like that, Mai was forgotten for a second time.

"Yes," he smiled silently. Pudding was always her favorite. She always had a pudding every night after dinner. "I'll call you again later tonight to check up on you. Good night, Kaede."

"Good night, Onii-chan!"


	5. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** VCRx does not own Rascal Does Not Dream. Rights belong to Hajime Kamoshida and Aniplex! Thanks!

_One day, Sakuta Azusagawa notices a wild bunny girl at the local library. But it is not simply any bunny girl, she's a senpai from his school, that so happens to be an actress on hiatus. However, something's off: Nobody seems to be able to see or hear her. It is almost like she doesn't exist, and Sakuta will soon discover, it might become just that._

* * *

**Rascal Does Not Dream of:**

**A Beautiful Bunny Girl Senpai C4**

* * *

**May 26th**

He and Mai continued their ride into the night. When their train reached the end of its line, they simply transferred to the next.

They couldn't return empty handed. They just had to find someone. Anyone.

The two of them now sat side-by-side in a nearly empty car on its way to Ogaki. It would be the farthest point they'd be able to go on Honshu, and if they didn't find anyone there, they'd have to head back north.

As the time marched the train became barer and barer with each station it met. The creaking of the wheels on the tracks became steadily more noticeable as passenger after passenger left.

It was getting very late into the night.

Mai was looking tiredly through her smartphone, probably looking up where they could head next if Ogaki were to bear no fruit.

"Hmm. It's the second most populous city after Gifu," Mai murmured.

"What are you talking about?"

"Ogaki. After Gifu, it's the second largest city in the Gifu prefecture."

Their whispers felt loud in the quiet car. There were only a couple other passengers that dotted the seats. However, they all seemed to be preoccupied with either sleep or their headphones to pay much attention to Sakuta, much to his relief.

It probably looked like he was speaking to himself.

"Oh, ok."

"The site also says Ogaki has a lot of underground water," Mai continued from her phone.

"I welcome places with clear waters…" he smiled to himself.

Mai silently put away her phone in frustration and stared out into the night sky. It was a clear night, and as they were passing through the mountains, further from the lights of civilization, the brightest of stars peaked out from the darkness.

However, Mai couldn't seem to be able to enjoy the view. She only seemed lost.

"Hey, Sakuta?" she asked. Her voice was quieter than a mouse.

"Heh? What is it?"

"C-can you see me?"

The reflection of Mai's eyes on the glass were trained hesitantly on Sakuta.

"I see you," he confirmed.

"Can you h-hear me?"

"Loud. And. Clear."

"Do you remember who I am?"

Sakuta blinked, before grinning. "Mai Sakurajima: Third year at Minegahara High, debuted as a child actress and had all sort of popular roles. She is known to have a very twisted personality and is never honest."

Mai narrowed her eyes. At least she'd stopped groveling. "How so?"

Sakuta train his eyes on the ceiling. "You're always so uncertain, but you always try to hide it."

With that, Sakuta slid his hand atop Mai's.

Mai's jumped in her seat in surprise and her gaze drop to their hands. "I never said you could hold that."

"I want to hold it."

Mai slowly returned her eyes out the window. She let out a long drawn out sigh, before slowly entangling her fingers in between Sakuta's. "All right. Special treatment for just tonight…"

Her voice went up an octave as she said that. Her cheeks blushed, as if she was embarrassed of the prospect of holding hands with him.

However, when she caught Sakuta's confusion by the reflection of the window, she blinked with the slightest bemusement.

Finally, the announcement came that the next stop would be Ogaki Terminal Station. Their night's journey would end there, and it wasn't until the train reached a final halt, did Mai and Sakuta unclasp hands.

It was well past midnight and the station was near empty. All the shops and guide stations were closed.

Sakuta didn't want to bother anymore weary travelers, but he asked the last attendant on duty about Mai.

"No, I don't know her."

He and Mai left weakly through the south entrance. They were near the city center, so a few businesses were still open.

However, they had to find somewhere to stay for the night. If Sakuta were alone, he'd use an internet café, but Mai had already told him she wanted a shower.

Sakuta couldn't argue with her. The sea breeze from Shichirigahama Beach had covered them with the stench of the sea, and he wanted to wash it all off too. He felt a little sticky from sweat, and his clothes smelled of salt.

They decided to a business hotel.

The receptionist looked at him suspiciously as he walked in. It was a natural one, seeing a lone high school student walk in at one-in-the-morning, and asking for a room. However, Sakuta seemed to pass a test when he paid up front for a night's stay, and was handed a card-key.

Because Mai was invisible, there was no need to check in for two. Sakuta was already running low on cash, so he had only booked a small room.

As they rode up the elevator, Sakuta asked Mai if it was alright they shared a room, but she just stared wordlessly at the digital floor numbers on the wall as they climbed up from lobby to floor six.

They found their room at the end of the hall: Room 601.

It'd been awhile since Sakuta had went to a hotel and he stood for a moment in confusion, holding the card-key as he stared at the door. There was no slot to put the card in.

Mai sighed, and took the card from his hand, before swiping across an electronic sensor above the knob. The lock clicked open.

"Wow, Mai-san is a genius," Sakuta gawked as she pushed open the door.

The hotel room was a single: with one bed, mini-fridge, a small dresser/table, chair, and television. It was all cramp. The bed itself took up half of the room.

"So small," he noted.

"That's to be expected," Mai confirmed, falling onto the bed and turning on the TV with a remote. She flicked through several dozen channels with a blank expression, before sighing and turning it off.

He raised an eyebrow. "Nothing interesting?"

"Nada," she grumbled. She sat up, kicking off her boots.

She was probably really tired from the long journey. He doubted Mai would have normally been this careless about manners.

Mai rose - now barefoot. "I'm taking a bath."

"Ehh?!"

"Don't peek."

"Don't worry," Sakuta saluted "-the sound alone could keep me fed for three days!"

Mai's eyes darkened and she silently pointed a finger toward the door, motioning him out.

"Heh?" Sakuta complained in regretful shock. "In that case, letting a young boy agonize by allowing him to only listen would be the etiquette of a composed, mature woman."

Mai sniffed.

"I-I know that," she excused herself, "-just don't do anything weird out here, will you?"

"Anything weird?" he feigned.

"Anything weird is anything that's weird!" she fought back, shaking her head in embarrassment. "Idiot, you know what, I don't care!"

She slammed shut the bathroom door and locked it.

Sakuta stood with giddy. "She was really cute just now…"

Soon, the sounds of the shower could be heard from the bathroom. Sakuta eased himself onto the bed, entranced to blissful sprinkles of water hitting the tub floor.

He lived off the sounds for a few minutes, before noticing a landline on small table/dresser and remembered how he'd promised Kaede he would check up on her.

Sakuta sat up and moved to call, but then decided against it. It was really late, and calling her now would only serve to wake her up. He thought who he could call. He didn't know many other people, and in fact had only memorized one other phone number beside his own.

Halfway through the third ring, the phone clicked, and a groggy, but familiar voice cracked through the speaker, "What time do you think it is?"

"Hello, Kunimi. I believe it's 1:16." Sakuta replied, reading from the landline's clock.

"I already knew that," Yuuma yawned. The phone crackled as Yuuma shifted on the other side of the call. "Why do you always call me in the middle of night, man?"

"Were you asleep?" Sakuta sheepishly asked.

"Like the dead," Yuuma agreed. "I had practice and then work this evening. I'm exhausted, you know? What do you need?"

"It's an emergency, so please, help me."

Yuuma yawned. "Yuhh? Wha cun I do?"

"First, I have to ask, do you remember Sakurajima-senpai?"

Sakuta didn't know why he was even bothering. It was a useless question. He'd asked over nearly two hundred different people about Mai and none gave him a positive answer.

"Huh? Sakurajima-senpai? Yeah, what about her?" Yuuma answered.

"Right – of course you don-" Sakuta began instinctively, but then Yuuma's words connected and Sakuta lurched onto his feet. Had he just-? "Wait! You remember her?!".

"Woah, you don't have to scream in my ear-"

"You remember her?!"

"Yeah, why wouldn't I?" Yuuma grunted. "What's this all about? Did you only call me just to ask that?"

Somehow, Sakuta had found someone! Yuuma remembered Mai! He didn't understand why or how, but he'd found someone!

It all meant that it was possible: there were others out there.

"Hello?" Yuuma called. "Sakuta? Can I hang up now?"

"Wait, Yuuma, do you have Futaba's number?"

"Why? Are you planning on calling her too?"

"Of course."

"...At this time at night?"

"Obviously. That's why I asked."

Yuuma shook his head. "She's going to be annoyed. She's going to tell you about your lack of sense..."

"Rest assured, I'm fully aware she's going to, to which I will assure her that I'm aware of the fact."

"The only thing I'm assured of now is that she's going to be pissed at me for giving you her number," Yuuma complained. Nevertheless, he began slowly grumbling out her number.

"Thank you," Sakuta told as Yuuma finished.

"Yeah, whatever," Yuuma muttered. "Just treat me and Futaba to lunch sometime, ya know?"

"Definitely," Sakuta nodded fiercely. "Night, Kunimi."

"See ya tomorrow, Sakuta."

When the phone clicked, Sakuta didn't waste any time and immediately started typing in Rio's number. Amazingly, it connected through within seconds.

"I swear, if it's-" Rio's voice spat out.

"It's Azusagawa," Sakuta answered.

"Even worse," Rio retorted. "Why would you be calling at this time of night? Do you know what time it is?"

Her voice was rather clear, unlike Yuuma's. At least he hadn't woken her up.

Sakuta glanced at the time once more. "1:19."

"It's 1:21. Your clock's slow."

"Is it?" It was a business hotel. One would think they'd have the times right. "Is this a good time? Well, actually, I need to talk to you even if it isn't, so please don't hang up."

"I see," Rio uttered. "You've caught yourself into another mess, haven't you?

"I wouldn't describe it as a 'mess,' per say..."

"Can I assume that the shower I hear in the background is Sakurajima-senpai?"

Sakuta blinked in wonderment. "Yes…"

He held his breath in excitement.

"I figured your cute little sister wouldn't be showering at this time of night," Rio mused. "Besides, I can see from the area code that you're not home. What are you doing in Gifu… wait - don't answer that - I don't want to know."

Sakuta was shaking his head unbelieving. Two people… "Futaba, you remember Sakurajima-senpai too? You know who she is?"

Rio hummed with annoyance. "Of course I know someone so famous. Are you always an idiot, Sakuta?"

"There's something crazy happening that's making me idiotic. Please, I need your help."

"You always seem to need help. If it's about Friday's Japanese review sheet, I'm not letting you copy mine."

"No. That's not what this is."

"Fine... I'll listen."

And so, Sakuta proceeded to explain the troubles he and Mai had discovered that day: how she was not being seen or heard by people and in fact, being forgotten by people as well. Rio occasionally interjected, but listened genuinely through the whole tale.

After he finished, Rio remained silent for a while, before sighing, "I see. This was what you were asking about, Friday. I'm surprised your relationship with Mai has progressed so far."

"Did you listen to anything I said?!"

"I never signed up to listen to your romance," Rio commented gingerly.

"I don't remember talking about it," he defended.

"You didn't say it. It was just the tone of your voice. You sound like someone on a high. I want to throw up."

"I wasn't!"

"You say that, but you are," Rio mumbled. "You are quite a bothersome person, aren't you?"

"I'm serious. I need your help," he pleaded. "I need to figure out what's happening, and I've run out of ideas.

Rio whistled, contemplating Sakuta's words. "I distinctly remember when we discussed about you and your sister that I don't believe in Adolescence Syndrome."

That was right. That was part of how he and Rio had made accompance. She had noticed how everyone seemed to shun him as well and had wondered why. She was one of the few people who knew the truth about his scars. It was probably the only reason she hadn't hung up yet.

"I know you said that; you said it was illogical, didn't you?" Sakuta replied.

"Everything that occurs in the world can be scientifically explained," she agreed readily. "With your talk about psychology and emotional voodoo, I stand firmly in the denial camp."

Rio firmly denied the existence of Adolescence Syndrome. She wasn't even convinced in the slightest for his explanations on the phenomenon.

But what was one part of their friendship that was true, it was that they always believed on another. Rio had said she didn't believe in Adolescence Syndrome, but she hadn't said she didn't believe he was facing something unbelievable. She knew Sakuta had never lied to her. She knew his entire story. She knew the reason he'd left his hometown was because of the gossip of his and Kaede's unnatural experiences. She knew why he had chosen Minegahara, even if it sounded like a daydream.

"Please. I'm desperate."

Rio paused. "You know, I once asked Kunimi why he bothered associating himself to you."

Sakuta leaned forward in curiosity. "Huh? Did you really?"

"He said that you had your good moments: You would always say 'Please,' and 'Thank you,' and 'Sorry,'" she confessed. "Well, I guess if you're desperate… What are you expecting from me?"

"I want you to figure out how and why this is happening, and find a way to fix it."

"Is that all?" Rio grumbled. "You're unreasonable."

"I'm panicking, so I get to be."

Rio sighed. "Got it. I'll give it a night's thought. Don't expect anything, however."

"You're a genius. I know you will," he smiled.

"And you're an idiot, you know that?"

Sakuta nodded at the compliment. "Thank you. It really helps."

However, Sakuta was still uncertain. Rio was the smartest person he knew, but also he knew that he shouldn't expect her to just fix all his problems. Even after two years, he still didn't know how to fix his scars. Could they figure out Mai's before it was too late?

Actually, he was now terrified. What if he ended up unable to see Mai? Unable to hear her sweet voice? Or forgetting her existence all together?

"So let's meet up at school tomorrow?" Rio said.

"We're all the way in Ogaki, so we won't make it until the afternoon, maybe lunch."

"Right…" Rio murmured in thought.

"What is it?"

"It's just... you said that you asked hundreds of people and only me and Kunimi knew who she was?"

Sakuta nodded vigorously, even though she couldn't see her. "That's right."

"And obviously, you do as well…"

Sakuta shot up in excitement. He knew that sound in her voice. It was the tone she'd get when her mind was putting together the parts. "Did you figure something out!?"

"It's just… what do us three all have in common?"

"We're all sixteen?" Sakuta said hesitantly. But he'd asked many teens today as well.

"That's a part of it. I was just thinking, we all go the same school."

Sakuta's eyes widened, as he remembered another detail from today.. Or technically yesterday. It had been at the beginning of their date. "Wait! Mai and I ran into a few other Minegahara students earlier!"

"You did?"

"Yes!" Sakuta breathed. Had they went this far of a journey for nothing? They had had proof people saw and remembered her at Fujisawa Station: when they'd met Tomoe Koga and her friends.

They had noticed Mai.

Rio clicked with curiosity. "And what happened?"

"They saw her too!" Sakuta was nearly screaming in excitement. It meant there could be an entire school that would remember her.

"Hmm, I see. Then my hypothesis is on-track for now. We'll need to investigate further tomorrow."

"Thank you Futaba! Yes, we'll be there! We'll try to get there by lunch, but we'll be there."

"Try to not call me in the middle of the night in the future," Rio cautioned. "I won't be as eager to help if you do."

"Right! Of course. Good night then. I'll see you tomorrow."

"You're such a bothersome creature," Rio stated with finality, before the line clicked dead.

Sakuta set the line and fell back down onto the bed. He was applauding himself in his mind for his success, before he noticed the shower had stopped and groaned.

"Uhh, whaa?" he muttered in painful agony. "The shower's over already?"

As he laid there wallowing in self-pity, the bathroom door unlocked and Mai's head popped out, a towel in her hair. Her skin was glowing pink from the hot water, and steam burrowed into the room.

"What do I do about underwear?" Mai spoke.

Sakuta blinked uncomprehendingly. His mind was melting by the sight of a bare shoulder. "Eh?"

"Wearing the same clothes is fine," Mai explained emotionlessly, "but I place the line on underwear."

Sakuta frowned, unsure what she wanted him to do about it. "...Should I wash them?"

Mai reddened. "I'd rather die."

"They're yours, so I'll happily clean your dirty underwear."

"You're not cleaning them."

"You're right. It'd be more valuable uncleaned."

"Stop being perverted," she retorted fiercely before going slamming the bathroom door back closed.

Sakuta marched up and knocked the door. He held his ear to the frame.

"What?" Mai's voice blared from the other side of the door.

"Are you wearing them now, Mai-san?" he asked.

"Wearing what?!"

"Your dirty underwear," he specified.

"..Stop getting aroused from fantasizing about me."

"It's a delusion, so it's fine. A women of your stature wouldn't mind."

Mai murmured sternly, "Why do you have to be so perverted?"

"It's unreasonable to tell me to not get excited when I've booked a hotel room with a beautiful senpai," he complimented.

"Are you trying to say it's my fault?"

Sakuta tapped his chin. "I think it'd be better to say that it's half your fault."

"Delightful."

Sakuta pulled out and checked his wallet. "If you're okay with underwear from a convenience store, I'll get a new pair for you. I was thinking I'd get some food for us as well."

They hadn't eaten anything since the Pocky.

Slowly, the door unlocked and opened. Mai poked her head out once more. This time she at least had her long-sleeve blouse on, to his disappointment. "Are you sure?"

"I've got the money."

Sakuta offered a glimpse of his pittance to Mai. He'd deposited most of his wages on Saturday, so it was nothing compared to what he normally carried, but it would be enough.

"I'm not talking about that." she shook. "I meant...wouldn't it be embarrassing for you to buy that kind of thing?"

She was referring to the underwear.

"Hmm. It used to be, but I've gotten used to it."

"Used to it?" Mai quipped with a puzzled tone.

"Do not worry. It's nothing nefarious. I just buy my sister's products and clothes for her," Sakuta explained quickly. Kaede refused to leave the apartment, so it was always up to him. "I got numbed doing it for awhile, but I do rather enjoy the staffs' reactions."

"What a great customer, you are," she remarked.

"Welp." He shoved his wallet back into his pocket and turned to the door. "I'm off!"

"Wait!" I'll come too!" she said, withdrawing the closed door and relocking it. She must've not trusted him in the slightest.

"You can just leave it to me."

"I'm... not... wearing underwear... that a boy picked out for me."

Her words were interspaced with sounds of struggling. He realized she must've been pulling on her skirt and couldn't help himself from getting giddy.

After she was done changing, the sound of a hair dryer had turned on. Finally, ten minutes of waiting ended with the bathroom door opened revealing an freshened-up Mai.

"Ok.. I'm ready. Let's get on with it..."

He and Mai left through the back entrance. Sakuta had already garnered enough attention from the front desk checking in so late and didn't want to draw any more suspicious looks. It was really helpful that Mai was invisible. It made sneaking out a bit easier.

"It's kind of strange…" Mai's voice broke as they walked along the street back toward a convenience store they'd passed on their way to their hotel.

"Hmm?"

"Being in a town I don't know, like this," she explained, looking up at the night sky.

Mai went along like she was enjoying herself. Her stroll had an energetic click and she her hands clasped behind her, despite the sleepy night. That shower had really helped her.

He laughed silently. "Didn't you go to a lot of new places for filming?"

Mai shrugged. "I went places - but didn't really _go_ places. I'd just be taken to hotels and the studio and work…"

"Ah, I get it."

He'd been on trips as well. His family had went to Kyoto and even up as far as Nikko in previous trips when he was much younger. He'd also gone on many school trips, but they'd all felt like a requirement… like he was brought there.

So when Mai said how she felt, he grew a bit of that sense as well. He'd never went on a journey before, choosing where to go. He'd never planned on going anywhere for himself, much less on the whim like they'd done tonight. It felt exhilarating, just being here, having just picked a train and traveled somewhere new. It was even better that he was here with her - with Mai.

So despite the tension of a looming threat like Adolescence Syndrome, tonight felt simply joyful. The night breeze seemed to seep away his week's anxieties and the silent glow of the crescent moon sent shivers of ease through his being.

"But the strangest part about tonight," Mai chanted, eyes twinkling, "-is that I'm out somewhere new, while walking beside only a younger boy I've only recently met."

Sakuta chuckled. It was apparently him that was the strangest part of tonight.

A simple, young boy.

He retorted, "I'd never think I'd be walking around a faraway city with _the_ Mai Sakurajima, either."

"It's an honor, no?" she smirked at him. It wasn't a pointed smirk - more of one of amusement.

"I'll never forget it," Sakuta agreed.

Mai fell silent at his words.

She'd definitely heard him, but he repeated himself anyway, "I'll definitely never forget."

"...And what happens if you do?" she murmured.

"I'll never forget!" Sakuta promised, and reached for her hand. "And if I do, well, maybe then I'll have to eat pocky through my nose."

Mai sighed. "Don't play with your food."

"You were the one that came up with such an idea," Sakuta mocked.

Mai looked up, with a silent smile. "Hey… Sakuta… You really won't?"

"Won't..?"

"You really wouldn't forget?"

Sakuta gave a tilted grin. "The image of you in a bunny girl suit is burned into my mind. I'll never forget!"

"You still have that outfit, don't you?" Mai scolded.

"You left it at my place. A treasure like that can't simply be thrown away," he proudly informed.

"You're probably using it for weird things."

"I haven't used it yet."

"Yet?" Mai raised a brow.

"It'll depend."

"Depend on what?"

"Nevermind."

Mai simply shook her head. "When we get back, get rid of it."

"Ehh."

"Don't 'ehh' me."

"Will you wear it one more time?"

Mai looked at him utterly aghast. Their eyes met.

He murmured, "As thanks for today?.."

Mai seemed about on the edge of slapping him, but apparently decided against it. "No promises."

"Thank you!" he thanked anyway, even though she hadn't agreed to anything.

"Dealing with a younger boy's urges is nothing. It wouldn't take too much effort…" But despite her words, her cheeks reddened.

"Well, if that's the case, we need to pick out underwear!"

"I'm still not letting you choose them."

And with that, they arrived.

As they entered, an employee at the counter gave them an exhausted welcome. There store was bare of other patrons, just a second employee stocking sweets. They found what they were looking for on shelves near the entrance.

There were socks, T-Shirts, towels, stockings, and of course, underwear.

He'd never bothered to really pay attention in depth, but they had apparently had a decent range - more than he expected. Each were folded up in plastica cases, and as far as female underwear went, there were panties and camisoles of varying sizes and colors.

Without much comment, Mai picked up a pair of black panties and camisole, before an addition pair of socks. With a slight suspicious look, she hesitantly handed the cases to Sakuta to hold.

Sakuta simply looked down at the items he was handed and commented, "Pink would've been nice."

"It's not like I'm going to show off to you, so it wouldn't matter."

"But…" he began.

She tisked. "Please, don't continue with whatever you were about to say."

Being stubborn wouldn't change anything, so Sakuta gave up. After picking up a pair of boxers and new T-shirt for himself, as well as a few sandwiches, they paid.

After returning to the hotel, they took turns changing and happily ate their sandwiches around their small table. Mai was in the chair while Sakuta leaned against a wall on the floor.

"We should go home first thing in the morning," Sakuta spoke as they ate.

Mai looked up from her food, deep in thought. "You must be worried about your sister; I guess it was slightly irresponsible of me to whisk you away when you had her to care for."

Sakuta huffed. "It wasn't like I didn't agree happily to it… but well, here's a thing, I found people that remember you.

Mai's eyes shot forward. "How? What? When did this happen?"

"My friends that go to Minegahara High, I phoned them while you were in the shower," he divulged, and nodded his head in the direction of the landline.

Mai shook her head in diligent amazement. "You've got no common-sense phoning so late."

"They told me the same, so it's fine."

"Such self-confidence."

"I think I'd forgive them for the same."

Mai leaned back in the chair and ran her hand through hair in thought. "So there are other people… thank goodness."

"Me and Futaba figured it could have something to do with school: it being we all have school in common."

"Futaba… That's a girl's name, isn't it? You called a girl while I was in the shower?!"

Sakuta wanted to correct her that Futaba was Rio's surname, but Rio was indeed a girl, so it wouldn't be much help.

"Umm…"

"I'm going to sleep," Mai grumbled, as she finished her sandwich and stood. She took her position in the bed. "Night…"

"Umm, where should I sleep?" he asked.

Mai sat up and looked around. "The bath? No - that'll make the staff angry - so bear with the floor."

"Okay."

Mai looked at his situation with disapproval before looking down at the bed. After a long moment, she asked, "Well, I guess you did ask me if one room was alright… and I still haven't been able to pay you back for the groceries… Can you promise not to do anything?"

"I promise!" he immediately answered.

She gave him a long suspicious look, before giving off a long drawn-out sigh of frustration.

"Fine… Come on."

Mai moved to the far side of the bed, and Sakuta switched off the light and laid down in the newly vacated space. It was warm from Mai's touch.

Wordlessly, they got beneath the sheets and closed their eyes.

"Hey, Sakuta," Mai spoke after a few minutes of silence.

"What is it?"

"It's cramped," she remarked.

Of course it was. They shared a single bed, and it was a tight fit. If they turned over, they'd hit one another.

"Is that a way of you telling me to leave?" he asked. He turned his head to the side, and his eyes met Mai's who had also turned to face him.

Her face was right in front of his; if he wanted to, he could count out all her eyelashes one by one in the dim light. She held an thoughtful expression, like she was dreaming of endless possibilities.

"Talk to me. Tell me an entertaining story."

"That's quite the challenge," he murmured. "Do you have fun troubling me?"

She placed her hands diligently between her face and the pillow.

"But Sakuta enjoys when I'm poking fun at him, doesn't he?" Mai spoke without a single change in her expression.

"You really do have a queen's personality," he mumbled, "I doubt any guy out there wouldn't find ecstasy at being teased by such a beautiful senpai."

"Is that a compliment?"

"A rave review."

"Ah... I see."

Their conversation stalled there, and the room grew silent. The drone of ventilation reigned and a car passed outside below. But despite that, Sakuta only felt his and Mai's presence in the narrow room. And as he continued to stare at Mai, Mai didn't look away from him either.

The moment consisted solely of the two of them.

A long time passed with them in silence. They blinked several times, and Mai's long breaths weighed on his ears.

"Hey. Why don't we kiss?" she whispered, breaking the silence between them.

He chuckled softly, hiding his shock. _This_ was coming from the girl who'd refuse to acknowledge him as someone just in it for a thrill. Just a little boy tagging along.

She was just full of surprises.

"…Are you frustrated?" he said.

"Idiot." she replied with an amused smirk, each syllable lasting a lifetime, her violet eyes glittering under the lamplight. She looked at him as he looked at her.

She smiled.

"Welp. I'm sleeping now. Night," she cooed, turning her back to him. Her silky long hair pulling down revealing the nape of her neck.

"Night," he whispered back, but this time so quiet, he doubted she even heard him.

Their silence lasted only a few moments, before Mai spoke once more, "Hey, Sakuta-kun."

"I thought you called it a night," Sakuta drawled.

Mai breathed softly. "If I started trembling, and told you I was afraid… afraid that I'd one day disappear from the world and that I didn't want to disappear, what would you do?"

She was a lot more afraid than she let herself show, wasn't she?

"I'd hold you from behind, and whisper in your ear that everything's going to be alright."

"Then I'll definitely never say it."

"Heh?" Sakuta shot. "Not up to standard?"

"You may take advantage of the situation and grope my chest of something…" she explained handedly.

He puffed in defeat. She still didn't trust him. "I wouldn't -"

"I had just decided to go back to showbiz…" Mai broke softly in anguish, "-so I can't disappear now. I want to be in dramas, and movies. I want to be on stage, acting, and in front of cameras… I want to meet new directors and co-stars, and want to feel alive, playing new parts."

"You'll probably end up at Hollywood," Sakuta added.

"That'd be nice," she sighed dreamingly. "Hollywood."

He nodded. "Maybe I should get your autograph now."

"My autograph is already pretty valuable…"

Sakuta could only hum in agreement.

"Really… I can't disappear," Mai finished, "I had just gotten to know a cheeky younger boy, and started to enjoy going to school…"

"I won't forget you," Sakuta whispered.

She didn't reply.

He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. "I absolutely won't forget you."

"Is there such a thing as 'absolute?'"

Sakuta sighed and decided not to answer the useless question. "You know, you'll get those parts and get to Hollywood soon enough too, I believe. You'll easily get back onto front stage, and you can even kiss me whenever you want. It doesn't have to be me that starts it. Anything is a piece of cake for Mai-san, she can do anything."

"You're right," she mumbled. "Though, that was your first and last chance to steal my first kiss."

He groaned internally. "If you'd said that first, I'd have done it."

"Too late," she giggled. But soon her momentary amusement faded.

He sighed, and turned to face the ceiling and closed his eyes.

"And Sakuta?..." Mai closed her eyes and sniffed back her torrent of fears. She was thankful he couldn't see her expression. "..Thank you, for not giving up on me. Thank you."

Sakuta didn't answer and decided to try sleep. If they talked anymore, he wasn't sure he would be able to resist the urge to embrace her. Thus, he remained silent.

Eventually, Mai's soft snores filled the air, and while they tried lawling him to sleep, simply being next to her made it hard for him to ease himself to dreams.

Before he knew it, several long hours passed, and the sky brightened through the curtains.

It was near seven when Mai awoke and they greeted one another morning.

"Morning," she greeted sternly, as her eyes opened to Sakuta's eyes trained on her.

"Good morning," he said back, with a hollow voice. He hadn't slept all night, and was still very much tired.

He yawned.

"Didn't get good sleep?"

"Ahh, not a single wink," he complained snoringly.

Mai frowned, irked. "Are you saying its my fault?"

"Mai-san is so audacious, being able to sleep beside a younger boy so soundly."

"It's something you learn from the job: learning to get rest when you're tired," she explained. "Besides, Sakuta sleeping beside me is nothing."

"That's good to hear," Sakuta replied. "Perhaps I'll have to pull all sort of pranks on you the next opportunity I get."

"Like you'd ever grown the guts to do that," Mai chastised, shaking her head. She sat up at pointed to the door. "Get out. I need a shower and change."

Nearly an hour later, they checked out of the hotel. Sakuta had taken a flat ten-minutes to freshen up, but Mai insisted on another shower, citing it had been uncomfortably warm last night.

He went to comment, but Mai was already glaring challengingly, so he fell silent.

Nothing seemed to change about Mai's conundrum as they walked through the streets of Ogaki. It was Monday morning, and only adults were out about, going by their business of heading to work or out on a day's shopping.

Sakuta repeated his desperate attempts from yesterday night - asking any pedestrian willing to give him a minute varying questions about Mai - in slight hope more than just students at Minegahara would remember her. To his dismay, it seemed no one remembered a 'Mai Sakurajima.'

Mai had even tried greeting an interviewee's dog, only for the dog to skip pass, continuing its day unaware of her existence.

It had been a really depressing moment.

They stopped by at the same convenience store the night before looking for some breakfast and Mai almost drooled at the sight of freshly delivered custard buns. They ended up being surprisingly decent, and Mai finished hers within just a few bites.

Much less to say, he bought her a second one despite her apparent growing annoyance with him for using up all his money for her sake.

"It's a date, after all," he cajoled.

Mai only sighed in reluctant appreciation.

They made it to Ogaki Station a quarter from nine and boarded an express line back to Fujisawa. The bullet train costed a lot more but they used Mai's commuter pass to purchase the tickets, which was a saving grace to Sakuta's bank account.

By the time the train rolled into Fujisawa Central, it was near noon, much earlier than what Sakuta had promised Rio, so they decided to stop at their respective homes to properly freshen up and redress.

"Onii-chan!" Kaede launched at him, like a pouncing lioness, as he crossed through the entryway. "Kaede and Nasuno missed you!"

Their calico cat, Nasuno meowed in indifference from his lazy position on the couch.

"Heavy!" Sakuta laughed as he embraced her back, before slowly separating himself from her. She'd nearly knocked him over. "You really don't need to jump on me like that whenever I've been out."

"Aww," she pouted. "But Kaede needs her recharge of Big-Brother-Energy!"

"I'll make sure you'll get your fill this evening. Did you eat breakfast yet?" Sakuta asked, taking off his shoes.

"Yes, she did! Nasuno did as well! Right, Nasuno?" Kaede chanted.

"Mrrreoww!"

Kaede nodded her head joyously. It was rare for Nasuno to be this responsive. "See?!"

"I guess you did," Sakuta nodded, patting her head affectionately. "Sorry about this Kaede, but I really need to shower and change. I'm really late to school as it is."

"Aww. Well, can Onii-chan bring Kaede more pudding? There's only one left."

"I distinctly remember there being five in the covers when I left yesterday…"

She hiccupped. "Nope! Only three."

Sakuta shook his head. "I see. I'll get some on my way home."

"Yay!"

After comforting Kaede a bit further, Sakuta took a quickest shower, and threw on his school uniform, before running out of his flat with his bag.

"You look like you ran through a typhoon," commented Mai, tapping her foot as he ran out of his building. Because she didn't have a younger sister to comfort at home and had already taken a shower at the hotel this morning, she'd arrived outside first.

Sakuta yawned. Despite just showering, his mind was beginning to mellow at the thought of returning to school. "You're beautiful as always."

He'd said it with a sarcastic tone, but he was dead serious. Mai was one of those girls that look amazingly cute in almost anything she wore, which blissfully included their Minegahara High uniform.

"Your tie's crooked," Mai grumbled. "I hate people that don't take professionalism seriously. Here, hold this."

She pushed her bag onto Sakuta and put her hands to his tie and straightened it.

"Ahh," Sakuta smiled, "I wouldn't think I'd get to play newlyweds with Mai-san so quickly…"

"Leave the stupidity to your face," she replied earnestly and lightly grabbed her bag back and walked off without him.

"Ah! Wait!"

He rushed after her.

They arrived at school during the latter half of lunch break. Most of the students were finished with their meals and were out relaxing. Some were playing on the basketball courts, while others sat on the lawn in idle chatter. It was a sunny and gorgeous day to spend the time outside.

Everything seemed normal, but today simply held the feeling one would get after returning after spring or winter holiday… Like the whole campus had been refreshed.

They switched to indoor shoes at the entrance hall.

"I'll go check with my class," Mai said, with soft scanning eyes.

No one had looked at her as they walked in, but that was perfectly normal. She'd been clouded by the school's atmosphere long before her troubles emerged.

"I'll come with you," Sakuta replied, but Mai simply shook her head.

"Go find your friend. She might've figured out something new."

"Uh, ok. Later," he waved. His eyes followed her as she left down the corridor, filled with students. No one else batted an eye.

That was the atmosphere acting to its extreme; the established truth to ignore her. It was something they didn't even think about. Their non-reaction to her presence was simply nature, the attitude among students the same as when he'd left.

It was strangely similar to Mai's Adolescence Syndrome.

That could be a connection to why he, Kunimi and Rio remembered. If the students immersed in the environment of Minegahara High were used to the idea of not noticing Mai, maybe it didn't affect them.

"Azusagawa," Rio's voice drawled, and he turned to her standing behind him, her hands in her lab coat pockets. She yawned as she looked at him, and he caught the contagiant and yawned as well. "I have some bad news…"

Sakuta tensed.

"It seems everyone else has forgotten about Sakurajima-senpai."

"Really?!" Sakuta's eyes widened. He held his breath. If he'd just gotten Mai's hopes up for nothing…

"At least Kunimi doesn't," Rio explained. Sakuta wished it was a lie. They'd spoken just last night, but neither Rio nor Kunimi had reason to lie, "when I mentioned her name this morning in class, Kunimi asked who I was talking about. I haven't asked anyone else, but…"

In that case, maybe Sakuta should ask a few more students, just to make sure. He took a step to look around, but that became unnecessary when Mai came running back, gasping with panic.

She grabbed his shoulders and looked into his eyes with panicked. "Can you still see me?"

"Yes, I can see you clearly," Sakuta nodded quickly, while Rio simply waved a greeting. Mai's pale face recolored as her eyes went back and forth between the two of them.

"Thank goodness," she gasped, "I still have two people…"

But there was nothing to be relieved about. Yesterday, there were still a handful of people who could see Mai: Sakuta, Rio, Yuuma… and Tomoe and her friends!

"That's it!" Sakuta ran off in the direction of the first years' classrooms. He ran through the halls and down the first years' wing and looked through all the classrooms. Tomoe was in the fourth he checked.

She sat in a window desk and was chatting with the same friends he'd seen her with yesterday.

"Koga," Sakuta called her name as he entered, waving his arm up in the air.

"Heh?" Tomoe looked up from her chatter, her eyes landing immediately on Sakuta. "…Hospital-senpai?"

The four of them, including Tomoe looked at one another and huddled.

"What's this about, Tomoe?" a friend muttered pointedly.

"Yeah, what's he doing, calling you?" Tomoe's friend who was bad at whispering, whispered.

Sakuta ran right up to them. "Do you know Mai Sakurajima?!"

"Mai Sakura…?" "Who's that?" "We don't know her."

Those were the answers he received, along with strange anxious faces.

"You saw her with me yesterday by the Enoden ticket gates at Fujisawa Station, didn't you?" He was sure they'd noticed. One of them had even commented about 'look who's he's with' so that had to have seen her. "You know, Sakurajima-senpai, the actress right? She's the third year and…"

Tomoe's expression tightened to confusion. "I-I don't…"

"Please!" he enjoined, grabbing her shoulders and shaking her. "Remember her, dammit!"

"I-I don't…" Tears began sprouting from Tomoe's eyes. "Ow. You're hurting…"

"Sakuta, let go," Mai intervened and grabbing his wrists and he noticed the strength of his grip.

Slowly, Sakuta let go as Tomoe was on the verge of crying.

"My – my bad…" Sakuta apologized, "Sor-sorry."

Mai simply sighed in exasperated shame for Sakuta and did a simple check of waving her hands in front of Tomoe and her friends. None of them seemed to notice Mai's existence.

They really were already dissolved by Mai's Adolescence Syndrome… just like Kunimi.

"I'm really, really sorry," he repeated profusely. "Umm, excuse me."

He left filled with both regret and embarrassment, dragging his feet.

Rio was waiting just outside in the hall. "That went splendidly."

"Thanks."

Rio simply shook her head at his insolence, and raised an eyebrow as Mai exited the first-year classroom as well.

"Well," Mai breathed, eyes down, "I'll… I'm going to check around campus one last time…"

Sakuta watched as Mai walked away, towards the direction of the commons.

When Mai was beyond earshot, Rio poked at Sakuta's shoulders. "Azusagawa… We need to talk."

She beckoned him down the corridor in the opposite direction and led him until they'd arrived in the Science Club's room.

She shut and locked the door behind them.

"What's with the secrecy?" Sakuta murmured.

Rio simply sat down at the teacher's desk and Sakuta had no choice but to sit across from her. She was shaking her head while her eyes were trained on the table, like she was trying to come to terms with everything they'd just witnessed.

Rio began softly, "Really, it's a crazy idea, but…"

Rio paused, her eyes casting doubt on what she was about to say.

"Just tell me," Sakuta urged.

Rio continued to shake her head in wonderment. "It's just… Azusagawa, did you sleep last night?"

"Not a wink."

Rio was one of the most observant people he knew - so he knew she could tell from his eyes he was tired - but it was simply more than just that...

She nodded slowly, eyes trained on his expression. "I didn't either."

Sakuta blinked, uncomprehending. Rio hadn't slept last night earlier.

She had quite severe insomnia and would complain about no being able to fall asleep the previous night often, so it wasn't strange.

"It seems only you and me seem to still see your girlfriend," Rio began. Sakuta wanted to correct her that Mai _wasn't_ his girlfriend, but Rio seemed to be on a role so he didn;t interrupt. "It's really unbelievable… yet the logic to the conclusion is simply elegant..."

"This madness we're dealing with is elegant to you?" he grumbled anxiously.

"If it's simply not having the same school in common that's deterred Mai's… 'Syndrome' than what else does? It must have a pattern and obviously, unlike you, I wasn't following around our subject like a hapless puppy…"

"I get it. You want to throw up. Please, get on with it."

"…Do you remember when we spoke about Observation Theory?" she asked.

"Schrödinger's Cat, right."

"It's an honestly ridiculous thought, but what if our perceptions are reset when we sleep?"

His mind stilled. "...What do you mean, our perceptions get reset when we -"

"Before she even dealt with your… 'syndrome,' she was already invisible to people: to all the student here."

"That's right."

"I normally don't go with social norms, but even I subconsciously took on the school's attitudes and accepted the situation as normal. My mind simply blocked her out as well, I have no doubts about that," Rio began, "But the deal is, if people realized what they were doing was wrong, would they carry on anyway or would they stop?"

Sakuta had a less than enthusiastic opinions about people, but he didn't think there were many that were consciously trying to do something that was as wrong as causing entire classrooms to ignore their classmate.

His mind raced back two years ago, when he'd confront the leader of the group who had bullied Kaede, who had simply looked at him with complete confusion and said: "Did I do something wrong?"

Most people didn't even know they were doing anything wrong when they're doing it. That was how life works. If they knew, they'd think and stop.

But for circumstances like Mai, she'd allowed the idea that nothing wrong was occuring by acting along. She'd played with the part the atmosphere had assigned her, and people around her simply nodded along and did as well.

Mai had wanted to disappear, to not be noticed, and the atmosphere had complied. Everyone else did as well.

"In our context's example, Sakurajima-senpai is the cat, and the school is the box." Rio muttered.

Mai hadn't struggled when the box had closed upon her. Even worse, she'd closed the box on herself. Thus, she'd shielded herself from observation, and her existence was indeterminate.

She had vanished.

She was a cat in a closed box. With no one observing her existence, she was ceasing to be.

And as the box laid there on the table, every student played along and left the box to its own devices. All the students went on their day, ignoring the cat and the box. The cat had placed itself in their, why would they trouble themselves letting it out? This all played subconsciously, deep below the realm of thought, and the students played along with it, and thus, nobody was going to check up on it, and help the cat when it finally wanted out.

Nobody was paying attention to the cat anymore, and thus didn't realize there was a problem, but how could they change their subconcious?

It was a true sense of dread that shivered down his spine. He'd known long before that something like the atmosphere was impossible to fight against. It was like punching air; an impossible enemy to combat.

"If the atmosphere in the school is the cause, then why is Mai invisible other people as well?" he asked, weakly.

"Well, if we really _are_ fully using your metaphor of an 'atmosphere,' is there truly a place you can escape it? If anything, you'll always bring a small part of it with you, no matter where you go"

He'd thought back to the day he and Mai first met, how she danced around and shouted in the library, but despite her actions, she had fervently argued she wanted to be unnoticed as well. After all, she'd advised him personally to forget about her.

But now, that wasn't the case.

Mai didn't want to vanish anymore, she'd declared that. She'd decided to return to showbiz and be on stage and go to Hollywood, and even if she'd been reluctant to admit, she was scared. She was scared of being invisible to everyone - scared of losing everyone.

_If I started trembling, and told you I was afraid… afraid that I'd one day disappear from the world and that I didn't want to disappear, what would you do?_

"The atmosphere can spread so easily," Rio yawned. "We live in an era where people simple read along the situation without a simple thought and play along. Information and trends can spread so easily. For something as simple as a social perception on a single individual, the internet would be convenient thing to spread through."

He really wanted to deny it. Rio's logic was full of holes and jumps, he was sure she was are of that. Yet, it made perfect sense. In a modern age where everything passed through so quickly from one person to the next, and how everyone just went along with the norms…

He had no response. Sakuta couldn't think of what point to argue about, and he had no better logic of his own to offer.

"Coming back to the point," Rio paused, and watched his silence carefully, "If observation and acknowledgments in the consciousness are key, I can somewhat say that it could be sleep, when the mind's consciousness shuts down, is when it all happens."

When people were awake, the could see and think. But when the fall asleep, they're powerless to outside forces, and if something were to change their subconscious perceptions of something… or someone…

He jolted in realization and his insides froze. He hadn't slept last night. Rio hadn't as well. If he assumed Kunimi, and Tomoe and her friends had, that meant…

Rio nodded firmly, watching as Sakuta had finally put together the pieces himself.

He stared gawking at blank space. "If I had fallen asleep last night… then by now…"

He couldn't – his mind refused to finish the thought.

Rio only nodded with confirmation.

After school, he and Mai rode the train back home together. It was a mellow ride, for Mai, one of dashed hopes. For Sakuta however, it was one of suspense.

They parted at the station. He had a shift at Benny's, while Mai was tired and wanted to go home.

He was tempted to call in, but Mai simply shook her head when he'd asked her to use her phone. "You need to take care of things like that, Sakuta-kun," she smiled kindly. "I'll be fine. See ya tomorrow!"

He worked until nine, with sleepy eyes and on the way home, he dropped in at a convenience store for Kaede's pudding. However, as he walked about, his eyes caught on a display of energy drinks.

There were some that cost two-hundred yen each. Those were the cheap ones. Right beside them, he found some that cost upwards of two-thousand. He looked back and forth, unsure of the difference.

All he knew, he needed to get some.

He picked up three of the cheaper ones, some mint-gum, a thing of anti-fatigue pills, and of course, Kaede's pudding.

Sakuta walked out of the store, his wallet considerably lighter. Combining that shopping spree with his round trip to Ogaki, his wallet was nearly empty, and he made a mental note to stop by the bank tomorrow afternoon.

As he returned home, he open the pack of gum and chewed on a stick of mint gum. His mind shivered at the cook taste that fluttered in his mouth and he walked with purpose. On the elevator up to his apartment, he drank the first energy drink of his life; it had a strange flavor, sweet, but distinct from a juice. It wasn't unpleasant, but he didn't enjoy the flavor.

It didn't matter, however. Soon, his body buzzed with energy and his mind was completely awake.

He'll definitely need more of these to stay awake.

"Onii-chan, what's that you're drinking?" Kaede tilted her head as he unlocked the door and walked into their apartment. It was nearly eleven at night, and her eyes were drooping.

"Why are you awake, still?" he frowned at her, ignoring her question. "It's late!"

"Kaede needed her dose of Big-Brother-Energy!" she mumbled apologetically and bear-hugged him.

Sakuta sighed. He guessed he now had some energy to spare. Struggling to move with Kaede clinging onto him, he shuffled along to her room, with the intent of returning her to her bed. After a small argument, he sat still at the foot of her bed. She refused to let him leave until she was fast asleep.

"Night," he whispered, tucking her blanket over her before quietly shutting the door behind him.

Sakuta went on to put away the pudding into their designated spot in the covers, while bringing the rest of his things to his room. Finally, he landed on his bed bemoaning, and immediately got out and swallowed a pill.

He sighed and sat stiffly on his bed while his mind raced. He had to figure out a solution, or at least some sort of insurance in case the worst-case scenario happened. He had to think now, while he was thinking properly.

There must be something he could do.

His eyes trailed steadily around, surveying his room in hopes of finding something – anything that could inspire him.

His eyes landed on his book bag.

Tomorrow was the beginning of Minegahara' s three-day session of midterms. For him, that was Science and Athletics first, then Civics and English, and finally Japanese and Mathematics last. However, his mind wasn't thinking of wasting time studying. Remembering Mai was far more important.

He was thinking, however, that perhaps his class-notes could be the key.

He stood and pulled out a fresh new notebook from his desk drawer. The purpose of notes were to help one remember a subject when you revisit them…

He scratched his head with his pencil, before starting to write. He made sure to take care for all the details and etchings. These notes were to be his most important of his life.

He wrote and wrote and wrote: everything he could remember about the last three weeks; the days since he'd met her…

_[Honestly. I think what will be written here will be absolutely unbelievable, but it is all the truth. Read this to the end! You have to read it to its entirety, me! Read it!_

_On May 4th, I met a wild bunny girl at the library. She is my… She is our senpai. She is a junior at Minegahara High, the famous Mai Sakurajima to be precise._

_This was the start of it: Our meeting. And I must not forget. I can't!_

_Even if I do forget, you must remember. Hold firm, future me. It is up to you. You have to remember! Remember Mai! ...]_

He continued writing for the entire night.


	6. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** VCRx does not own Rascal Does Not Dream. Rights belong to Hajime Kamoshida and Aniplex! Thanks!

_One day, Sakuta Azusagawa notices a wild bunny girl at the local library. But it is not simply any bunny girl, she's a senpai from his school, that so happens to be an actress on hiatus. However, something's off: Nobody seems to be able to see or hear her. It is almost like she doesn't exist, and Sakuta will soon discover, it might become just that._

* * *

**Rascal Does Not Dream of:**

**A Beautiful Bunny Girl Senpai C5**

* * *

**May 28th**

By Wednesday morning, Sakuta's condition had only worsen. It had been his third consecutive night without sleep and his body was beginning to revolt against his useless stubbornness. He had spent much of his early morning in front of the toilet, Kaede standing outside worriedly, as he puked out his guts.

So there was apparently an actual downside to surviving purely on energy drinks, mint gum, and anti-fatigue pills. Who knew?

Clearly his body did, as he flushed round after round of blue liquified muck. Only after he'd felt truly hollowed out and sat against the tub dizzyingly for nearly twenty minutes, did Kaede shake him up about how it was around the time she normally wake him up.

He forced himself to cook Kaede breakfast and get ready for his second day of exams, but he struggled every step of the way. He was exhausted – beyond exhausted. Each time he blinked, little stars would appear on the cusps of his vision and he'd feel nauseous.

Mai greeted him as he managed to stumble his way out of his apartment building. "You look horrible."

"And you look ab…so…lutely beauti–" he slurred, before succumbing to an enormous yawn which seized his ability to complete the sentence.

Mai frowned worriedly at the dark rings around his eyes and his drooping posture. "Sakuta, are you all right? Maybe you should call in-"

"I'm fine, perfectly fine!" he declared brightly, and stretched his limbs. Now that he was outside, the sunlight in his eyes slightly eased his internal war against exhaustion. "It's normal. I'm always like this during exams."

"You sure you're alright?" Mai asked, uneased, as she reached out and straightened his tie.

"One. Hundred. Percent," Sakuta lied, swooningly.

He wasn't fine. He was beyond his limit. His whole body wanted to simply collapse and his bloodshot eyes just wanted to close tight. But he couldn't allow them to rest – he'd be vulnerable if he did – and so he powered on down to the station alongside Mai.

On the train, Yuuma greeted them – or rather, just him, with a giant wave. "Yo! Sakuta!"

"Morning, Kunimi," Sakuta yawned, while Mai shrunk into the background, unsure if she had the right to intrude upon the friendship.

"Man, has the exams this year been that bad on you? You look like a zombie, even more than normal!"

Sakuta bubbled with amusement. No doubt he did look like one. He felt the part. "Yeah, science and athletics was rough yesterday and today is Civics and English."

"Ah, me and Futaba took those yesterday," Yuuma noddeded. "English is what you've got to worry about, I definitely didn't get a decent score."

"Huh. Shame. Any tips?"

"For starters, I'd try not falling asleep during the exam," Yuuma advised poking his pallor skin. "But seriously, if you actually tried cramming all night like that, I wouldn't worry too much now."

He had much to worry about. His pulse was pumping blood unevenly behind his eyes and the world seem to rock around him. He wanted desperately to empty his breakfast, but he managed to hold it down. He didn't want to splatter in a train car.

He was able to make it to Minegahara without too much trouble besides a set of wobbly knees. After changing into their indoor shoes, Sakuta bid Mai good luck on her exams and headed to the restroom.

His stomach had seemed to at least mellowed out, so he only went to the sink and splash cold water on his face. However, it didn't even nudge him awake. He was already past that point where getting a bit of a splash was going to help, and a sense of dread enveloped him as he realized he was destined to lose.

One couldn't live without sleeping, that was a simple fact.

He'll eventually fall asleep sooner or later.

He really needed to find a solution soon.

Afterward, he went and took his exams. Civics was horrible, and English was just simply impossible. Much of the exam was spent looking out the window with a winded daze, and stabbing himself with his pencil lead so he'd stay awake. He hadn't even reached half-way through the English exam before time was called, and he sulked as he turned in his paper to his teacher knowing he was going to fail.

On the train ride home with Mai, Sakuta stood like a shadow of himself, his eyelids heavy and his mouth sagging open. He was massively thankful that he'd asked beforehand to have this week off from work for the exams. He doubted he would've made it this far if he had shifts to cover as well.

"You look dreadful," Mai commented as the train rode into Fujisawa Station.

He yawned. "I'm always like this during tests," he repeated from earlier that morning.

"That type of thing only happens when you don't study routinely," Mai criticized.

Sakuta groaned. "Don't say it like a teacher…"

Mai sighed as they exited the train. "I don't want you to fail… How about I come home with you and help you study."

"If you're in my room with me, I'll wouldn't be able to concentrate, so let's not."

Mai blinked in surprise as if she hadn't expect him to turn down the offer. "Oh... Alright."

Sakuta was beginning to feel like he could nod off...

"Umm, I have to visit the bank. Later," he waved as he started walked in the opposite direction of their apartments.

"Oh. Later then," she replied.

He could feel her steady gaze on the hairs of his back as he walked away.

Mai was starting to notice how tired he was getting. She was starting to worry.

He didn't want her to notice - didn't want her to figure out… She had a keen eye for detail, and if she were to know what he was trying to do for her, it might cause her immense guilt.

He had to get away from her for just tonight and collect his thoughts. He needed to get more money so he can reload on energy drinks. He needed to find a way to resist the atmosphere...

He needed a plan.

He made it to the bank and was able to reload on cash. The clerk looked at him strangely, probably because he looked the part of the walking dead, but he was able to push through it. Once he returned home, he chugged his last energy drink and sat down in his living room - Nasuno snuggling into his lap - and opened up the physics book he had borrowed from the physics teacher.

_A Gorilla's Guide to Quantum Physics._

It was a futile hope. Rio's explanations and metaphors with quantum physics and Schrodinger's Cat were a stretch at best, but now with Rio out of the picture, he had no allies left for this quest and no new ideas left to solve it.

So, he read. He read and read and read. Even though it was an introductory guide, the words still seem to fly about the page. His head hurt and all the strange vocabulary and calculus and differentials made his eyes demand rest. They grew more and more heavy with each page, acting like a mage casting a sleep spell... It wasn't helping.

The physics book wasn't helping.

An hour and a half later of wasted energy later, Sakuta unsteadily set down the book beside him and coaxed Nasuno off of him. He was getting nowhere; the book didn't do even the slightest of a good job explaining things like how Rio did, and the energy drink's strength was already dwindling…

He'd planned on getting his reload the next day, but perhaps he should get over with it and go out today.

Before he left, he cooked dinner for Kaede and himself. Her stomach was grumbled as she sat at the table and he scrambled to prepare food for the two of them.

"Onii-chan, you look pale. Are you okay?" Kaede said as they sat opposite of one another at their table.

Although he looked in her direction, Sakuta's mind blanked out a response.

"Onii-chan?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you okay?"

"Oh, mhm, yeah. My tests are going right now."

He was confident his excuse was useless.

"Don't push yourself too much."

He yawned. "Yuhh, I won't."

She didn't look like she believe him, but she dropped the subject. "Thank you for the food."

"Thank you for the meal."

After their meal, he left Kaede to do handle the dishes and went out to the convenience store. It was cloudy out, and despite the cold evening-breeze, the dark skies made his nodding-off mind droop even further.

He was near the point of falling asleep while standing, and it was only thanks to colliding into another man as he was walking along, did he get jolted enough to stay awake.

At the store, he brought a half dozen more energy drinks. This time, he'd purchased the expensive ones, the ones that costed 2000 yen each.

He hoped these would be stronger than the cheaper ones. The cheaper ones were already losing their effectiveness.

When he walked out, he halted with a lurch as someone was waiting just outside. He shuddered and sweated, as Mai's heavy gaze landed onto him.

"What did you buy?" Mai shouted angrily at him.

"Ahh, umm…" He frantically dug through his sluggish mind for an excuse, but he couldn't think of anything. His drowsiness had reached an unbelievable point.

Mai snatched the bag from his hand and checked inside. "I was right; you're not sleeping!"

It seemed Mai had figured it out. It was that attentiveness she had that he loved. Both Kaede and Yuuma had pointed it out how tired he looked. It would've been strange for Mai not to.

"Did you really think you could hide things from me?!"

"...I hoped I could."

"Idiot, you can't keep something like this up."

He sulked. "I couldn't think of anything of anything else."

He had known from the start it would've been impossible to go without sleeping. Humans couldn't live without sleep, and even if he did plan on never sleeping, it wouldn't have solved the problem at heart. Even if it had been pointless, Sakuta had had no choice. There seemed no comprehensible solution to Adolescent Syndrome. How could there be, for such an incomprehensible phenomenon. There might not even be a solution, but he couldn't sleep until he did.

Even now, he had no intention of falling asleep.

He wanted to keep remembering Mai; he wanted to see her face every morning for the rest of his life. He wanted to be with her. He wanted her to never be alone again. He couldn't allow the Syndrome to defeat him. He couldn't.

"You're so pale. You really are an idiot."

He couldn't even argue with her on the part. "I really am…"

"Come on, let's go home," she sighed. She thrusted the bag back at him and walked off in the direction of their homes. Unthinking, he followed.

It was past eight when they returned home. Kaede was happily whistling a tune from the bathroom, some jingle she'd heard from the television. It was a short tune, and she kept looping it over and over.

Meanwhile, Mai made her way into his room, and he stood still, taken aback.

"If you enter a boy's room at night, that's the same as saying you're okay with whatever happens, right?" Sakuta murmured giddily, referring to how she'd refused to enter his apartment at night last week.

"It's only eight. It's safe," she easily replied.

Sakuta yawned. "Even so, why are you here, Mai-san..."

"I'll spend the night with you."

Sakuta raised a fist in victory. "A man's dreams come true-"

"It's not. You should know, I don't plan on letting you sleep tonight."

"Crap. Now I'm even more excited."

Mai glowered. "Why must you give me so many reasons to slap you awake?.."

Sakuta only smirked. Mai was enjoying herself somehow, he could feel it by her tune, as she pulled out his foldable table and sat down on the carpet.

He wanted her to slap him all night…

"Come on," Mai called. She patted at the space beside her on the floor. "Sit."

"Yes ma'am."

He sat.

"Where's your textbook and notes?"

"Mhm?"

"I'm going to help you study. You have your last day of midterms tomorrow," she said with a reluctant expression.

"Eh. That won't help."

Studying would only make him more tired.

"Sure it will. Studying can help, I know all the tricks. You can say I'm a wizard at it."

"You're a wizard… at studying?"

"Yes," Mai said with a serious face. "I didn't go to school at the start of first year, but since second year, there's never been a mark on my paper lower than eight!"

"You're more of a nerd than I thought…"

"It's not that I'm a genius. I just study in my free time."

"Mai-san, that's the definition of a nerd," he lamented. "You'd normally play during free time."

She sighed. "That's enough. Let's get on with it."

She pulled out his books from his bag, and sorted through it. He had his schedule in there, so it wasn't hard for her to figure his two remaining exams and take the textbooks out.

Sakuta stared blankly as she set down his books between them on the table. "Senpai, I don't have any motivation."

Mai glared at him. "Even when I'm the teacher on a home visit?"

"If you were in your bunny outfit, I might get some."

Mai blinked, before giving a pointed glare. "I strictly remember someone saying earlier about how bad it would be if they'd get distracted by such a thing while studying."

"I'm already distracted. I might as well get motivated by it too," he defended.

"Would anyone in that suit do for you, Sakuta?"

"Only you."

"Hmph," Mai grunted, while she flipped through his notes. He hoped they were up to par with her standards.

Sakuta yawned and rubbed his dry eyes. He should've invested in eye-drops… "So, no bunny suit?"

"Nope."

"Welp. I tried."

His head was barely working. His mouth was doing its own thing, blabbering without any filter.

"Hmm," Mai mumbled thoughtfully. "How about… if you get full marks in a test, I'll give you a reward?"

His mind lurched at Mai's offer. "Anything?"

"Sure, sure. Anything. Whatever," Mai agreed easily waving her hand off at him. "Anything within my power, at least."

"Tomorrow is Math and Japanese…" he grumbled to himself. His hand grabbed for his math notebook. "I might be able to get full marks on maths…"

"Eh? You're good at it?" Mai quivered in dismay.

Math was his best subject - which meant he would sacrifice Japanese and bet everything on Math. Japanese was filled with contextual and vague questions anyway, so it was near impossible to get full marks no matter how good one was. Math, however, had definite answers and as long as he wrote down his work correctly, she should avoid minor mistakes…

Mai swiped away the notebook in his hands.

"Huh? What was that for?"

"Even though I said anything, I didn't mean anything," Mai pouted, fidgeting.

"I wouldn't go too far…"

"Really?.."

"I'd content myself with 'Take a bath with me,'" he assured her.

"That's an out."

"Eh? Even with swimwear?!"

"What kind of maniac are you, thinking of bathing together in swimwear?" she scorned him, kicking him under the table.

"Then… I'll have you give me a lap-pillow in your bunny suit!"

"You suggest that as if I'd agree to it…"

His enthusiasm waned. What would Mai agree to…

A light-bulb flickered in his mind. "What about… having that date in Kamakura we missed out on?"

The sudden reasonable request surprised Mai for a moment. She hummed in thought.

"That's okay… but are you sure..?"

"Should I be requesting something more extreme?" Sakuta asked teasingly.

"Definitely not." Mai pinched his cheek. Hard. "Honestly, you're so cheeky for your youth…"

"Am I really?"

"Well… Nevermind," Mai sighed. "Let's help you study."

And so, they spent nearly the next two hours together revisited challenging concepts and practice problems. Sakuta reverently protested he needed to work on Math, but Mai simply shook her head and made him work on kanji problems:

Mai pointed down at the paper. "Write down the correct derivations of the prefix 'guarant-' for the following sentences: a) 'There is no one who will be the _blank_ of Sakuta's future.' and b) 'There is no _blank_ that Sakuta will live to an old age.'"

"Sensei," Sakuta mumbled tiredly, "I sense animosity in the sample phrases."

"Don't care. Just write them down," Mai instructed, tapping his notebook with her pen.

Sakuta scratched his head in thought, before proceeding to write down two sets of characters he thought were correct were the right conjugates. When he looked up, he saw Mai smiling.

"Good! One of those is 'guarantee' and the other is 'guarantor.' Now which one is used for which sentence?"

"It's…"

That was where he struggled. He always had trouble with differentiating between derivations. He made a subtle move with his finger towards the character he wrote on the left, and gleaned for any revealing change in Mai's expression.

However, Mai saw right through the act, and their eyes met. Mai smiled deviously back.

"If you are having difficulty due to the sample phrase, we can also go with 'I can't _blank_ Sakuta's safety if he cheats.'"

Sakuta dipped in shame. "I'm sorry. I don't know. Please give me a hint."

"This one," Mai pointed to the one on the right, "- refers to action of promising or assurance of something. The other one," she pointed to the left, "refers to the person who is promising something. You can differentiate it based on the 'hito' hoshou at the end, which means 'person.'"

"So… that means 'I will be the guarantor of Mai-san's happiness,' and because of that 'There is a guarantee that our life together will be wonderful?'"

Apparently he was right, as Mai's gaze bore into him, and she slowly rolled up the notebook in her hands and wacked Sakuta on the head. "Don't go changing the sentences on your own."

"Huh? They weren't cute?"

Mai didn't answer, and just looked back down at the notebook, thinking of another question.

She yawned and it caused him to yawn.

He was getting really tired. "I really need something in my system to wake me up again… You want tea?"

"Do you have any coffee, here?" Mai asked immediately.

He blinked. "Uhh, only instant. Is that fine?"

"Yeah, it's great," she waved him off. "I'll go make more problems for you."

Sakuta left for the kitchen to start up a kettle. While he was waiting, he checked up in on his sister; her light was already off and slow snores danced from her bed.

When he heard bubbling, Sakuta marched back into the kitchen and took two mugs out and put a pack of instant coffee into each. Then, he poured the steaming water into it and balanced the two as he brought them back to Mai.

He handed Mai one, and slowly sat himself back down. He set his cup on the table.

"Do you have any milk or sugar?" Mai asked hopefully, looking at her drink hesitantly. "I don't drink it black."

Sakuta blinked hard. He'd gotten pure black to keep himself awake, but he had forgotten Mai didn't necessarily have the same issue of lack of sleep as he did. "Oh - right. Sorry, I'll get some. You want both?"

"I'll make due with sugar," Mai nodded with appreciation, and Sakuta frantically got back up and went to get a few packets of sugar and a spoon.

When he returned, Mai was still looking through his notebook.

He handed her the packets and the spoon. "Here you go, Mai-san."

"Thank you, Sakuta-kun."

Sakuta took a large gulp of his coffee while Mai tore a packet carefully into her mug and slowly stirred it with the spoon. He enjoyed her girlish actions as the black and bitter drink settled warmly in his stomach.

"How's your sister?" Mai suddenly asked, taking a slow sip from her mug.

He raised an eyebrow. "She's already asleep."

Kaede had looked into his room awhile ago, and upon him seeing him studying alone, left him with a 'Onii-chan is so studious…'

"Kaede is kind-hearted," Mai commented, in between sips, before blinking hard at her drink. She tore open another sugar packet.

"Are you an only child, Mai-san?" Sakuta asked in turn, taking up her topic of siblings.

The way she had talked suggested she was.

"I have a younger sister," Mai longingly sighed stirring her cup, once more. It was impossible to understand what she was thinking.

"Ehh?"

"She's from my father's remarriage," Mai explained. She looked down at her lap, before giving Sakuta a contemplative glance. "She's your age."

"Is she cute?"

"Not as cute as me."

"Wow. That's a quite childish thing to say…"

With those words, his mind grew fuzzy. His head hurt and his eyelids drooped.

"Even though it's true?" Mai murmured into her coffee. "I _am_ cuter than her."

"You're the most beautiful girl in existence," Sakuta informed her. "That's not saying much."

"Oh?" Mai rolled her eyes. "Would you rather I be the kind of girl who would entertain the ideas of how cute others are?"

"Not really…"

"Right?"

"Still… she's your own sis…"

His train of thought stopped. His words raced into a wall of exhaustion and they halted.

He noticed he couldn't feel his body: his hands or legs or…

He gripped uselessly at the edge of the table, hoping to support himself as he lost all feeling.

His eyes were already trying to close on their own...

"Oh good," Mai's voice broke through, as a deep fog glazed over his eyes.

Sakuta's latched out, holding onto the corner of the table. He managed to steady himself enough to look up, only to see Mai's conflicted expression enter his darkening vision. She looked down with a kind but regretting smile, like she was reminiscing on an old memory…

"Mai-san… what's happening…"

It looked like she was on the verge of tearing up now. She was blinking up the sadness.

Nevertheless, to answer his confusion, she pulled something from her bag… it was a small pack of pills.

_Sleeping Pills._

He struggled to speak. "When…?"

She'd slipped him pills somehow. She'd…

"Thank you for the coffee, Sakuta-kun."

She'd slipped it into his coffee…

Which only left the question of…

"Why…"

He couldn't raise his voice. He tried his damn hardest, but his mouth was no longer listening.

He tried again. He tried with earnest, but his voice wouldn't work.

"You tried so hard, Sakuta…"

He lost the strength to stay upright. His arm folded and his head crashed onto the table.

No… He couldn't fall asleep…

"You put in so much effort for my sake…" Mai's voice was quivering now.

He couldn't even turn to see her face.

She gently stroked his hair with sorrow. It was a warm, pleasant sensation. It made him shudder with ease.

"I was always alone, so it's okay now. You've done all you could…"

Mai's shadow was fading. His thoughts were as well. Even the touch of her index finger on his cheek…

"But thank you… thank you for everything."

He hadn't done anything worthy of thanks.

"...And, I'm sorry."

She hadn't done anything to apologise for.

"Rest well…"

Guided by the gentle voice, Sakuta finally closed his eyes, and fell into a tender, comfortable...

"Good night, Sakuta-kun..."

He sank down, deeply, deeply…

Deeply...

…

..

.

_It was done._

_It was the hardest thing she'd ever done - but she had done it._

_It had been necessary. She couldn't have asked him to torture himself for her for all eternity…_

_Tonight, Sakuta could now rest._

_In the morning, he will continue his life anew._

_It was okay. _

_He'd allowed her to enjoy these last few weeks…_

_But for his sake, it couldn't last…_

_It just couldn't..._

_Farewell, Sakuta-kun._

_Goodbye. Good night._

_..._

_.._

_._

* * *

**May 2****9th**

"_Hey," she whispered delicately. "Why don't we kiss?"_

_He forced a soft chuckle, hiding his shock. This was coming from the girl who had refused to acknowledge him as anyone more than someone just in it for a thrill - just some young boy tagging along._

_She really was full of surprises..._

"-chan."

'…_Wait._' He managed to think, as he felt his mind lurch awake, his body shaking. _'…Who is she?'_

"It's morning."

Sakuta groaned.

Correction. Someone was shaking his body.

"Onii-chan, it's morning!"

A white light shone through the pitch-dark world.

Sakuta grappled the strength to open his eyes as his consciousness returned. His fatigued gaze met his little sister Kaede's face, who was bent over the bed. The light coming in through the crack in the curtains hurt his eyes.

"You have exams today, right?" Kaede voiced, worriedly. "You'll be late."

She proceeded to shake him once more, even though he was up.

"Ah, yeah." He stifled a yawn, pushing her off him. "That's right. I got midterms."

Sakuta struggled to sit up. His whole body felt heavy, like he'd caught the flu. Touching his forehead, he felt for warmth... He felt slightly hot, maybe clammy, but he didn't necessarily feel unwell. He was – he was simply tired.

Crushing down his urge to collapse back into bed and sleep off the rest of the morning, Sakuta tossed off his covers and got up. He didn't need be late for attendance on exam day. Taking the make-up exams would be far too much trouble for sleeping in today.

He looked his clock: _7:35AM_

His mind raced, adding up the numbers. To get to school, there was a ten-minute or so walk to Fujisawa Station. Five – if he sprinted. Then, a little over twenty-minute ride on the 8:10 Train. The train ride would take normally twenty minutes, normally, and the 8:30 train would make him late. It was all rather close, but he'd done it many times before. He'd just have to leave the apartment before eight.

"You're a lifesaver, Kaede. Thanks for waking me."

"Waking up is my reason to be," she smiled cutely, but he couldn't praise that.

"You should find other ways of enjoying your life."

"Like washing your back?"

"That's a definite _no._"

"Aww."

"I meant something that doesn't involve me." As he spoke, he opened his closet to get his uniform. He took his school shirt off its hanger and in that moment, his hand slipped letting the shirt to fall atop a black paper shopping bag on the floor beneath it.

"What's that?" He asked himself. He didn't remember buying anything with that kind of bag.

He looked in the bag as he picked up his shirt. Kaede watched from the side and both of their gazes caught sight of the contents at the same time.

…A short silence filled the room.

"Onii-chan, wh-what is… What is that?!" Kaede pointed into the bag with a trembling voice.

Sakuta wanted to ask that too. There was a black leotard with a white pom-pom at the rear. There were similarly black stocking and several-inch-high heels, and even a bow tie. There were white cuffs and, to top it all off, a pair of bunny ears on a headband.

…It was a bunny girl costume.

"…Maybe I was going to get you to wear it," he said, unbelieving of himself. He didn't remember buying these. That was saying something; Sakuta considered himself having a pretty acute memory.

His mind lurched, itching like something was right on the tip of his tongue.

"Eh?" Kaede said as his hand riffled through the contents.

He picked up the headband and placed it on her head. Sakuta put his hand to his chin in a thoughtful mock gesture.

"Yeah, not too bad," he judged, jokingly.

Apparently, Kaede didn't have the same impression. She stiffened, before throwing the headband back at him, and rushing out from the room. "I'm not wearing that! It's still too soon for me to wear this kind of clothes!"

She slammed the door.

He hadn't particularly wanted to chase off his sister and make her hate him first thing in the morning. He'd need to apologize to her later. He had to get ready.

He returned the headband to its bag and kicked it back into the closet.

He turned back to his mirror and was met by his own bloodshot eyes and tired expression.

"Am I over-stressed?" he spoke to himself.

He put his arms through the sleeves of his shirt and buttoned it up. Next came his uniform trousers and then his red tie. It came out crooked.

"…"

He'd never cared much before if it whether it was straight or not, and would normally head out without a single care… but today, for some reason, it bothered him. He unknotted it and retied it, this time putting in the attention for it to come out straight.

Before he put his blazer on, he tossed his books into his bag. A green notebook on his desk caught his eye. Not recognizing it, Sakuta picked it up.

"What was this?"

He flipped through the pages, all of them empty, until about half-way through, he spied a page with neatly written sentences.

He'd thought for a moment that it was his Japanese notebook, but looking carefully, he could see it was not.

There were instructions at the top. And the rest was some sort of diary entry:

_[Honestly. I think what will be written here will be absolutely unbelievable, but it is all the truth. Read this to the end! You have to read it to its entirety, me! Read it!_

_On May 4__th__, I met a wild bunny girl at the library. She is my… She is our senpai. She is a junior at Minegahara High, the famous _ to be precise._

_This was the start of it: Our meeting. And I must not forget. I can't!_

_Even if I do forget, you must remember. Hold firm, future me. It is up to you. You have to remember! Remember _!]_

Sakuta's eyes followed the words down the page. There were many blanks in the sentences, like some sort of puzzle or Mad-lib.

He didn't remember why he'd written this. Or when. But scrutinizing the handwriting, the characters were definitely his own. He made a quick glance at his trash bin, spying the litter of energy drinks he'd downed over the last few nights of studying. He wondered if they'd somehow put him in a sort of delusion, but the words were too neat and well-formed to be the result of some late-night madness.

As he kept reading the words etched onto the page, the more painful and maddening it was. It continued to describe his time with the ideal girlfriend, entries filling a dozen more pages. It talked about them conversing on the platform, on the train, and at school, and even consisted a date where they went to Ogaki.

He had indeed gone to Ogaki several days ago, when he had a sudden urge to travel and to see something new for a day – meaning to break his routine – but he vividly remembered going alone.

But what frustrated him the most – the thing most alarming – were the blank spaces. There were empty gaps in the lines, where someone's name should be in the sentences.

Had he concocted some sort of love tale for himself, and would fill it in when he'd manage to find a girl he liked? It was a rather embarrassing idea.

He pushed those thoughts aside, flicking the notebook into the trash with his litter of drink cans. He had exams today, and he needed to have a clear head. While he normally never cared about his grades, for some reason, he simply needed to get perfect marks for this one. He would have to think this all over after-school.

Yet, those blanks on the page chilled him.

'_It was all simple rubbish. Writings from a mad-man,' _he thought, trying to convince himself.

And so, grabbing an apple from the kitchen, and shouting a quick, 'See you later' to Kaede, he headed out, for another day of school.

* * *

**This seems like a good place to end it! How was it? :3**

**Sakuta's adventures do continue after this, but my friend (who is an internet hermit and refuses for me to put his name here) who does the bulk of the translations is dropping from the project. However, if you look forward to a continuation, the novel series is _Seishun Buta Yarou_ and the anime is _Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai. _There is also another translator who is way ahead and honestly, his translations are way more accurate. Go check out Mountain of Pigeons (just google him). Highly recommend his work.**

**Giant thanks to JFlashandClash who painstakingly spent many nights in a row up late to help edit. **

**~VCRx**

* * *

**[Finished: 3.24.2019]**

**[Last edited: 6.11.2019]**


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